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Earth Sheltered Housing


Nigel Bridgman-Elliot
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>My design is based on an internal skin of prefabricated steel reinforced

>concrete blocks slotted/bolted together in a similar shape/style to what you

>might find when looking at a football. The reason for the blocks is so they

>can be replaced in the future from the inside when the rebar fails (concrete

>cancer/spalling/etc.).

 

Catch up Nigel, haven't you heard of titanium reinforcing rods? They never rust! Might throw your costings out a bit, mind...

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You just have to look at the houses at the east voe Scalloway which went up in the past five years some just look like tents they might not be underground but they look as if the first gust of wind would blow them down

 

are you talking about the ones that DITT have built?? the blue/red/purple ones they are a great example of timber frame/timber clad houses and are very strong indeed and also quick to put up and very well proven to stand up to the shetland weather whereas concrete domes are relatively unproven in the shetland climate, hopefully nigel will come to shetland, build one of his domes and prove us all wrong 8)

 

I was makeing the point of what they looked like they may well be good homes

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It would be interesting to see what price titanium reinforcing rods

are, but so far all of the rod types I've looked at have had issues, stainless steel ones rust even faster than ordinary steel would you believe it! fibreglass ones rot, rubber coated steel might work as long as you never get them damaged, which isn't really realistic.

 

There is another material for reinforcement suggested a while back, but its name escapes me for now, I'll have a look up about it later. But going by how the Romans did their concrete and how well it lasted, its perhaps best to stick with something we know works :-)

 

I'll have a greater look at the buckytile idea paulb, but geodesic domes with many joints suffer terribly from leaking, where as a single pour monolithic structure tends not to.

 

It would be nice not to reinvent the wheel.

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but so far all of the rod types I've looked at have had issues, stainless steel ones rust even faster than ordinary steel would you believe it! fibreglass ones rot, rubber coated steel might work as long as you never get them damaged, which isn't really realistic.

 

I take it you've looked into concrete additives as well then?

http://www.uk.graceconstruction.com/product.cfm?mode=c&id=12&did=1

this particular additive has been used in Shetland before....

 

then of course there's good old fiber reinforcing, no need for any silly metal bit's rusting in your concrete when you can have plastic fibers instead....again readily available in shetland already ;)

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I'm not really keen on wooden structures because of the fire hazard point of view as the main reason.

 

I've seen/heard of quite a few cases of building collaspings from using the plastic fibre approach, from what I have heard only really being useful if the concrete remains in compression, eg. ok for foundation floor type slabs, but nothing else which might get stretched, and also rotting issues too. (Even floor slabs would get stretched during an earthquake so thats really out too!)

 

As such I'd rather shy away from something which doesn't have a long track record, and especially if i come across some bad examples of it failing. (I've yet to find failures when it comes to waterproof concrete/additives, but I'm still looking..)

 

Hence the idea of having the outershell without reinforcement to avoid that being the cause of failure, and having the internal blocks replacable but with reinforcement on the basis that some will fail and that ease of maintence is paramount.

 

I tend to believe experience and practice over theory, so I get to hear about many great products, yet when I talk to the people who end up with the final result, the end product is often very poor indeed.

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I've seen/heard of quite a few cases of building collapsings from using the plastic fibre approach

there are lots of different "fibers" on sale I'm sure all would have different quality's...most of those I've seen used here have been in slabs tho so I'll let you off with that one. ;)

we've never had a significant earthquake in shetland (no more than a rattling of the cups in the cupboard really) so that shouldn't be an issue!

 

I think if you keep looking into things the way you seem to you'll find reason not to build at all....nothing is going to have a 100% track record.

 

when reinforcing concrete, however you do it, the best safeguard against the reinforcing "rotting" is to give it plenty of cover...

http://www.nrmca.org/aboutconcrete/cips/25p.pdf

 

I've seen concrete buildings up here that are still standing from around the time of the war, possibly earlier with very little wear and tear. Also I've seen a lot of homes built using Concrete blocks from the 70's in shetland that need rebuilt....and guess what, loads of stone build croft houses a couple o hundred years old if not more, still standing with ppl living in them! (not to mention the hundreds that are derilict around the isles but still the walls are standing!)

 

so, from experience/practise...stone built is the way to go in Shetland, it's gonna cost you tho. :D

 

seriously tho, concrete may not be the most enviromentaly friendly substance to build with but I very much doubt it will fall around your ears unless the design is that crappy!

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we've never had a significant earthquake in shetland (no more than a rattling of the cups in the cupboard really) so that shouldn't be an issue!

 

I used to live in a substantial stone house built in the 1920's, Olnadale at Voe. None of the doors hung straight and there was a large crack in a concrete. These were attributed to an earthquake not long after it was built.

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