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On Sun, 2008-02-24 at 12:13 +0000, Tom Potts wrote: > polyurethane! No! - use straw! If he can extend the roof eaves over far enough to keep it dry, it'll be fine for a few hundred years with mud, horseshit and lime mortar. Lime because it breathes, cooks at about 600c instead of 1200c or more for cement, and absorbs back most of the CO2 driven out of the materials. But modern stable PUrethanes are an allowable material as the qualities of exceptional insulation and durability mean that it is a justifiable use of oil feedstock ... the sort of thing we should be reserving oil feedstock FOR, I would argue, rather than stupidly burning the stuff!!! I've done a bit of straw bale and other green/traditional materials (i.e. pre-brick/block non-stone from before the mass transport of the rail age) building back in the 70s and 80s. Also, we're trying to rustle up a local green group to build my garage/workshop with sloped rounded shape and green living cover semi buried into the slope of the garden amidst the ancient hedge this summer ... also seems boy scouts might be interested in a live project. Now all I need to do is source a heap of second hand/recycled timber to do a strong enough roof for turf, though I have toyed with the idea of using straw bales to engineer an igloo structure having built igloos as a kid in Canada in the winter it might very well be possible to construct a self corbling structure in this way, but the downside is I'd have to use something non renewable on the outer skin as it would lack eaves to keep rain clear of the surface. I spotted a very good pair of books in the local bookshop last summer - The Green Building Bible (or Builders Bible??). Very comprehensive, in two volumes, I know a bit about building having been in the trade as a youth and a pioneer environmentalist doing hands on stuff in the early days along with some weird and wonderful self build housing coop stuff in the 70s and 80s, and it was all good stuff on the pages I leafed through. Highly recommended. Local mental health charity recently did a large meeting hall out of straw bale - Restore in Oxford - which I went to have a good look over during construction as it was a major undertaking being of considerable height and length and width - most straw bale work in the UK has so far been ancillary "shed" type structures or infilling for a wooden framework, this was just heaped straw bale (though using ratcheted stainless steel tiedowns onto the groundplate to compress and stabilise the structure - I think they can be forgiven for not using hazel or will withies >;) How well does wifi go through couple of feet of straw bale and about 4-6" of mud and horsepoo and lime? -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html