Indoor CO2

[l82start]

you want to watch some "not bad" TV about a good and knowledgeable house inspector helping Canadian families, who on the advice of crappy house inspectors, have bought the kind of cheaply built, disaster houses you are talking about..  mold, no ventilation, rotting foundations, water damaged etc..  check out Holmes Inspection (TV Series 2009– )

the carnage is incredible!

edit to add --it was available on netflix last time i looked"

[Pointedstick]

Yeah, I agree it seems that the best approach might be to have both the new technology and the building company. 

That liteblock 38 looks like a decent product.  Is R 35 too low for national use?  I like the idea of this sort of building material, particularly in your area, where the style of stucco homes sells well.  They also claim that a nailgun can be used with this product, which would make it very practical for building out the interior.

It's not really R-35; that's a marketing gimmick. Most American AAC is about a maximum of R-1.25 per inch (European AAC goes up to about R-1.8/inch), so multiplied by 8 inches thick, it has a real R-value of about 10. R-35 comes from studies that have shown that masonry walls often perform at an effective back-calculated R-value that is much higher than the "sticker price" R-value, but this number depends heavily on climate, location, orientation, and the rest of the building. What they're basically saying there is that in an ideal climate (New Mexico or Arizona), with an ideal building configuration, a house made out of these blocks ought to theoretically perform as well as a wood-framed house with R-35 insulation. But the non-determinism of this statement amounts of a lot of marketing sizzle that is liable to leave most people disappointed.

I am of the opinion that R-value should be R-value, and mass-enhanced walls need a new scale of measurement to advertise their benefits. Overloading R-value to do it is deceptive at best.

[Xan]

PS, you should start a business...

I think about it every day. The problem is that the majority of market is entirely cost-driven, and there are already plenty of boutique custom builders making nice things for rich people.

The real innovation is going to be a materials science pursuit: inventing a masonry building material and/or method that meets or beats the cost of wooden crap, and performs better in virtually every way.
There are already a few of these that come close, like this thing: http://crescoconcrete.com/liteblok-38/

However it isn't a good enough insulator for most of the country and isn't widely available outside of Texas. It's a real shame these things never catch on.

That's the second problem: having a better and cheaper product isn't actually enough! The entrenched conservatism of the building industry results in most people just doing what they're comfortable with, even if it's expensive, slow, and the results are bad. You'd need to really start a homebuilding company to actually produce the results that others say aren't possible. I do consider it. A lot.

Yeah, I agree it seems that the best approach might be to have both the new technology and the building company.

If you think it'll work and lack of capital is what's slowing you down, I'd imagine you'll find some folks here willing to bet on it as a VP play.

[dualstow]

The high humidity causes mold to grow on the chipboard cores of cheap kitchen cabinets and IKEA furniture.

Make a mental note: eventually we should have a thread about all the toxic stuff exuded by cheap IKEA furniture and the glue in modern flooring.

[Pointedstick]

If you think it'll work and lack of capital is what's slowing you down, I'd imagine you'll find some folks here willing to bet on it as a VP play.

Yes, I have considered that! I'm still working on inventing this new building material right now. I suppose I could start the business using existing materials, like the Liteblok products, which would indeed work well in the New Mexico climate.

[Mr Vacuum]

The old construction style was to build leaky, with no regard for airtightness, and with little to no insulation either. These buildings were therefore more inexpensive to build, required no fancy mechanical systems for fresh air, and they were generally robust against moisture damage due to the air and heat moving through the building assemblies that dried out anything that got wet. It also helped that these old buildings were often built with thicker, harder, old-growth lumber that did not rot as quickly. And it further helped that the wall coverings were lime plaster, which has inherent antimicrobial effects due to its alkalinity.

These old buildings worked. But they were uncomfortable without near-constant space conditioning, which made them energy pigs that saddled the owners with very high utility bills. And despite this, there were usually still rooms that were never comfortable.

You are describing my old house. 1920s, plaster, old pine studs and rafters that are hard as nails, HVAC runs a lot during extreme temps or much wind. Somehow the energy bills aren't bad, despite the long cycles. My hunch is the full complement of replacement windows the previous owner installed make it much better than it would be.

I had been interested in insulation and sealing in hopes to make my house feel more comfortable. But I quickly ran into this: http://bobyapp.com/blog/2009/06/myths-a ... ouse-walls. And I've seen friends walk away from a mortgage because of bad construction-induced mold problems and no help from contractors or insurance. What a nightmare. So after having the attic insulated, I have left it alone (other than noting to check out the options with the basement sill and basement ducts).

Hopefully I haven't bored people to tears, but this is my current kick and I could go on forever if there's interest!

Please do. When it seems like everyone else is blowing in insulation, you start to wonder if you're singlehandedly destroying the planet. So thank you for diving below the surface and articulating the "building system" issues. We need that perspective in order not to create more problems.

I am enjoying the plants subtopic, as well.

[Libertarian666]

PS, you should start a business...

I think about it every day. The problem is that the majority of the market is entirely cost-driven, and there are already plenty of boutique custom builders making nice things for rich people.

The real innovation is going to be a materials science pursuit: inventing a masonry building material and/or method that meets or beats the cost of wooden crap, and performs better in virtually every way.
There are already a few of these that come close, like this thing: http://crescoconcrete.com/liteblok-38/

However it isn't a good enough insulator for most of the country and isn't widely available outside of Texas. It's a real shame these things never catch on.

That's the second problem: having a better and cheaper product isn't actually enough! The entrenched conservatism of the building industry results in most people just doing what they're comfortable with, even if it's expensive, slow, and the results are bad. You'd need to really start a homebuilding company to actually produce the results that others say aren't possible. I do consider it. A lot.

You forgot the biggest obstacle: government. The current building trades have a stranglehold on the building code (governmentally enforced) in most big cities.

Now if you want to build out in the sticks where there is no code, you might get somewhere.

[Pointedstick]

Code isn't the problem. All this stuff is already permitted. It just isn't done because there's no familiarity with with it and builders generally stick to what they already know. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.

[Libertarian666]

Code isn't the problem. All this stuff is already permitted. It just isn't done because there's no familiarity with with it and builders generally stick to what they already know. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.

Really? That's not what I have heard.

But if that is true, then you have a great opportunity to disrupt a major industry. Why not go for it?

[Pointedstick]

Code isn't the problem. All this stuff is already permitted. It just isn't done because there's no familiarity with with it and builders generally stick to what they already know. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.

Really? That's not what I have heard.

But if that is true, then you have a great opportunity to disrupt a major industry. Why not go for it?

I plan to eventually! The nut I haven't figured out how to crack is getting builders interested. Like I've said, products that are very close to perfect are already on the market, like Cresco Concrete's Liteblok product. This product is available and in use in Texas, and it's fully code-approved. Codes have sections for AAC block as well as a "general masonry" section that a lot of things fit under. The problem is interest and uptake. The Liteblok product is cost-competitive with a typical stuccoed wood frame wall in Texas, and superior in virtually every way. So why aren't more people using it? And how would you get them to? What are the available and effective channels for generating interest, awareness, and sales?

I don't have answers for those questions yet. Once I do, I expect to kick my efforts into high gear, because the product I'm currently iterating over is superior to the Liteblok in every way. Better insulation, appropriately-placed thermal mass, interior channels for utilities, a pre-finished exterior so you don't even have to stucco it, etc.

[Libertarian666]

Code isn't the problem. All this stuff is already permitted. It just isn't done because there's no familiarity with with it and builders generally stick to what they already know. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.

Really? That's not what I have heard.

But if that is true, then you have a great opportunity to disrupt a major industry. Why not go for it?

I plan to eventually! The nut I haven't figured out how to crack is getting builders interested. Like I've said, products that are very close to perfect are already on the market, like Cresco Concrete's Liteblok product. This product is available and in use in Texas, and it's fully code-approved. Codes have sections for AAC block as well as a "general masonry" section that a lot of things fit under. The problem is interest and uptake. The Liteblok product is cost-competitive with a typical stuccoed wood frame wall in Texas, and superior in virtually every way. So why aren't more people using it? And how would you get them to? What are the available and effective channels for generating interest, awareness, and sales?

I don't have answers for those questions yet. Once I do, I expect to kick my efforts into high gear, because the product I'm currently iterating over is superior to the Liteblok in every way. Better insulation, appropriately-placed thermal mass, interior channels for utilities, a pre-finished exterior so you don't even have to stucco it, etc.

If we move to NM, you can build a house for us.

[MachineGhost]

After reading this article a couple months ago I got a CO2 monitor and found the indoor CO2 concentration was above 1100 PPM all the time and rose to 2000+ PPM when we used our shitty low end gas oven. We've since set the the bath fan to run constantly, replaced the gas range with an induction range (totally awesome BTW, and better for bread baking too), and even cracked the windows a bit in winter. An ERV system is planned later this year, which should save money compared to the status quo of bath fan + cracked windows.

Please stop contributing towards global warming, climate change or whatever the fuck the reason d'etere of the moment is.  Turn off your fan and close your windows!  You are killing butterflies in Mexico!

[Pointedstick]

Turn off your computer, MG! Your electricity use is contributing to global warming!