[GSBN] Fwd: School built in Nepal - Seek for advise

[James's]

Does anyone have any ideas for Sona?
Thanks James

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Sona Huberova <sonahuberova at yahoo.com>
> Date: 16 June 2014 9:47:39 AM AEST
> To: James Henderson <james.henderson8 at bigpond.com>
> Subject: School built in Nepal - Seek for advise
> Reply-To: Sona Huberova <sonahuberova at yahoo.com>
> 
> Dear James,
> 
> my names is Sonia and we met at the EBAA conference last year, we are the couple with the school in Nepal. I have to organize fixing some defects on this first building now and would like to ask for your opinion in one particular matter. I just started to read your book so I thought that you may be able to help us.
> 
> As you may remember, the school is built with bamboo frame and wattle and daub walls, weaved and plastered from two sides. After a couple months, spots appeared on the inside of the walls, you can see in the attachment. The spots are not seen on the outside, but we think that it is because the facades were painted with cement-based paints at the end of construction, which did not happen in the interiors.
> 
> We are planning to fix the spots by painting the interiors with similar paint, although I am not sure it will solve it for good. But we are puzzled why did the spots appear in the same place. We let the villagers to mix and render the walls in their traditional way, so the mixture is as follows:
> 
> 3 parts of soil (half in half mixed from two soils, one more clayey, one less)
> 1 part of rice husks
> 1 part forest grass finelly chopped
> 1 part cow/buffalo dung
> 
> The mixture has been left to rest for six weeks or more. We were told that this is the traditional way to render, and the mixture indeed was very strong after drying, alhough cracked a lot and two more coats were needed to finish it. I am not sure what sort of mixture they used for the final layers, but it would againg be just a combination ot the above mentioned.
> 
> Some of the walls were then filled with loose soil, but we abandonned this so not all of them are. the spots appear on the filled one as well as on the empty ones.
> 
> We are surprised at finding the spots as none of the local houses, rendered in this traditinal way have this problem.
> 
> Would you have an idea what may have caused it? Have you ever encountered or heard of this sort of spotting?
> 
> Bamboo elements were pressure-treated with solution of Acid Boric and Borax, do you think that may be the problem?
> 
> We are planning to build more of those school buildings in Nepal based on a standardized project, so we will need to avoid the defects and their causes in future.
> 
> Sorry for bothering you with it and I would understand if you did not have time to answer to me.
> 
> Kind regards
>  
> Sona Huberova
> +61 466 482 682
> meemARCHITECTURE
> www.meemarchitecture.org
> 
> 
> 
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