Monday, April 11, 2011

Building Green (Another option)

My aunt told me that SMU is building several houses on campus as a test bead so I did a little searching and came up with this link and pictures. The pictures were robbed from the site at the link. Looks like there may be another alternative to building green down here? It would sure take the back breaking labor out of filling and moving sandbags! Perhaps using sand bags up to a certain level then switching to plastic blocks would make a build stronger and easier to build once the level got to a height where sandbags would be too much work?
 Building with Plastic Blocks

Worth checking out. Main problem would be coming up with all the plastic, but seems like there is a lot of aluminum can recycle bins around here. Perhaps we would also start seeing bins for recycling plastic.
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7 comments:

  1. LarryLillyApril 11, 2011 at 3:54 PM

    I saw this this weekend. The "press" they had was pretty ingenious. Yeah, finding the plastic woul be a problem, since each brick takes a bunch. But anything plastic is used. Lightwesight then surrounded by traditional coverings.

    Wonder hoiw they would hold up in the winds you get down there. The attachment structure becomes more intense.

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  2. tffnguyApril 11, 2011 at 4:09 PM

    LL, that's a good question. I'd want to try it out on a small structure first and then go from there after real high winds. I'd think it would get a lot of strength from the plaster inside and out though???

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  3. DeneseApril 11, 2011 at 7:19 PM

    Great idea, but what if the building caught on fire?

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  4. tffnguyApril 11, 2011 at 8:32 PM

    I guess it would go up in smoke. ;)

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  5. DeneseApril 12, 2011 at 5:36 AM

    Nasty oily toxic smoke.

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  6. Quixote KidApril 12, 2011 at 7:56 AM

    Great find tffnguy. At our local Walmart they recycle the plastic shopping bags and always have a bin full. So at least in central Texas, we are recycling shopping bags and in Austin they do pick up plastic with the recycling also. I'm not sure if you could buy the plastic from those places or not.

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  7. tffnguyApril 12, 2011 at 10:03 PM

    jicky, you're probably right.

    QK, I have a feeling it would take the recycle bin of bags of all the stores in Austin to build a decent sized hut. Not sure how good an idea this is after all?

    Made a quick trip to Odessa and back today with my neighbor who was looking to buy a pickup. He found a good one and we headed back this evening. A few hours before we headed back this way I got a news bulletin through my email saying another big fire was ragging around Iraan. It also said part of I 10 was shut down again and they were cutting fire breaks along I 10. By the time we were leaving Odessa the city of Odessa was in a light blanked of smoke from that fire. We were in that blanket of smoke for probably a good 60 or 70 miles. Its starting to look like all of west Texas is going to burn. :( I don't know if it was smoke from that fire we were inhaling for so long or its made it down here because I still smell smoke!

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