nothingugly

The New Atlantis published an article: “Shop class as soulcraft“. It’s good stuff, but this made me think:

While manufacturing jobs have certainly left our shores to a
disturbing degree, the manual trades have not. If you need a deck
built, or your car fixed, the Chinese are of no help.

Yes and no. What has happened is that on-site labor has become insanely expensive. Hourly rates for even moderately competent handymen have soared to over $45/hr. The response of the market has been to create a series of products - largely manufactured in China - to minimize on site labor. Instead of installing formed sheet metal flashing, which requires measuring, cutting, and bending, we have these rather amazing new products that are a combination of metal foil, rubber, and space-age adhesive. Slap it on, it forms to the sill or ledge, and sticks basically forever. it costs two or three times what metal flashing costs, but installation time is seconds, not hours. Thus, we trade materials costs for labor costs, and we outsource the materials. Of course, this isn’t even getting into the outgassing and  bizarre toxic chemicals that this little stick-on wonder will be adding to your indoor atmosphere for the next twenty years.

Comments(0)

I love these new “glass wall” products. These are sets of doors that can open up to expose an entire room to the outdoors. They have a couple drawbacks, though. From what I can tell, they’re a) ferociously expensive, and b) everyone calls them something different. It’s the usual marketing shell gam e, but once you figure out what they call these things, then it’s easy to ask for them or do your own search. Oh, and nobody will ever print a price on the web. The original manufacturer, as far as I can tell, is NanaWall systems. They do cite a price range, at $600 to $1200 per linear foot. The sunset breezehouse uses the Nanawall.

Jeld-wen makes a folding door, too, but for them the keyword is “exterior folding door system“.(pdf) I haven’t done my homework, so I have no idea how it compares to the Nanawall, pricewise. It is a much newer product, and doesn’t have all the fancy options that the Nanawall has. There is a similar product from Loewen (bifold doors). I could go farther, but I’d be cribbing from this article, which has a good summary of manufacturers and options.

I keep fooling with designs hoping that I can come up with a home that uses a glass wall. Then I beat myself up - not only will I have to pay for the glass wall system, I’ll also have to build up a clear span structure that’ll support the weight of the structure that bears on the wall that isn’t there. Some container designs do have large unsupported spans, which is tempting. Heck, if you go with the (pictured) quick house, they’ll even graffiti it for you. I can always compromise on the glass wall concept by making a bunch of fairly standard french doors.

In truth, I would very much like to make my own doors and windows. In California, we’re required to use IG - insulated glass - in residential construction. As with everything, if you get too far away from the norm, you have to do engineering work (more to the point - you have to pay someone who can do the engineering work and stamp it) to prove that you meet the insulation requirements for a new home. This is going to make it a challenge to make my own windows. I’m able to run the molding and framing, but I have to buy double pane units to put in. I’ve been told that as long as the glass itself is certified, then I can indeed do this. If that’s the case, then I can make real french doors, not one of these IG units with lath between the panes. Or, just as bad, laying the muntins over the glass. I HATE the way those look. And don’t get me started on the bizarre crap they make windows from now. I’ve already expressed myself at length on that topic…

Comments(0)

The heart of this building project will be a workshop. I’m currently working in a 700 square foot basement, much of which is dedicated to car space. It’s manageable, but I’m quickly running out of wood storage. Larger projects are also a problem. I started by looking at barns. This fellow - Dano - has come up with some lovely barn plans. But the cost per square foot will be on the order of $60-$80 per, if I have someone else build it. I’d love to build it myself, but it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. There’s nothing there now but a pasture - no tools, and no workspace.

My friends over at NIMBY found me a 24′ high-cube shipping container. “High cube” means they’re a foot taller than standard shipping containers - they clock in at 9′6″. Handy, if you want to store lumber. You can stand it up in the container, instead of stacking it lengthwise. And who doesn’t like ten foot ceilings? That’ll help me get established out there, but realistically, it’s going to be awfully hard to complete an entire structure by working weekends, especially since the land is an hour’s drive from my current home.

So why not make the shop out of containers? Stack them up like legos around a hollow center, and roof the whole thing. Standard steel buildings are cheap to extend lengthwise, but they cost a packet to make them wider (stronger trusses are required) and the costs on going higher are even worse. For a building with 12′ to 14′ ceilings, expect to spent $50/sq foot on a decent sized insulated steel building.

These buggers are STRONG, too. You can stack them 9 containers high. And they’ll hold 30,000 pounds apiece. So that bottom container is holding up an awful lot of weight. Provided they’re not loaded too heavily, there should be strength to spare even if I cut holes in them. And, if not, I can always weld in reinforcing. Of course, I’m not qualified to run the engineering numbers on this. That’ll be expensive, and it almost certanily means hiring an architect to work with the county on permits. Howqever, the materials cost on this structure will be low - The main cost will be the concrete it sits on. Then I’ll have to roof it. But siding? Well, they’re already waterproof. I could paint them. But a little research shows me that they’re already made of cor-ten - or at least, that is what some folks claim. If you’ve ever seen rusty metal used in sculpture, or architecturally, you’ve seen cor-ten. It’s steel, alloyed with a little bit of copper. The result is that the rust becomes an impermeable “skin” on the surface. Once that rust is in place, corrosion stops. I think it looks great. So I’ll sand blast these guys (I’ll have to do something with the paint chips; it’s probably not the sort of stuff you want sitting in your vegetable garden!), spray it with a light solution of hydrochloric acid, neutralize after 24 hours, and voila!

Inside, I don’t know how much container I can cut away before they become too weak. But if I have my druthers, it’ll look something like these images. Note that the model is quick and dirty - the openings aren’t lined up any way in particular. I’m reminded of the interior of fort point, except that I’ll roof over the interior courtyard.

I like it - it messes with my sense of what is indoor space and what is outdoor. It also blurs the line between residential and industrial. I’ll put an office in here, somewhere, and a glass shop, and who knows? Maybe a little living space will steak in. Turns out that if you add up all the floor space, it’s about 7700 square feet. The interior courtyard will be 40×64 (2560 square feet), but the container spaces make up the balance.

Next, cantilevering… but that’s for another day.

Comments(0)

There are dozens of industry trade publications. The writing is often spotty, and they largely fail as journalism. But they’re a good way to learn about building technology. They also - often inadvertently - illustrate how builder and component manufacturers think.

For instance, the headline story this month in September’s Shelter (and October’s Door & Window Manufacturer) is about formaldehyde. Both publications spoke to a fellow named Tom Julia, who runs the Component Panel Association. These are the folks who make - well, pretty much everything that looks like plywood. Ever wonder how plywood is made? They basically peel logs on the world’s biggest apple slicer, and then stick the sheets together with glue. Well, not glue - really. They use variations on urea formaldehyde resin. This stuff is great. It’s absolutely rigid, so your plywood sheets won’t warp when it gets humid, or develop “glue lines”, or delaminate. It’s cheap, its so strong you can use it to glue together wood that would otherwise go to waste, and it’s easy to work with. Wonderful stuff. Except for the formaldehyde part. If you live in a house that uses plywood, you’re breathing just a little right now. Safe exposure levels? Zero. Causes cancer. And this stuff outgases for decades.

If you’re living in a newer home, it’s probably made from a lot of OSB, or oriented strand board. It’s ugly, but it’s strong, cheap, and uses little chunks of wood, instead of whole log peelings. And a lot more formaldehyde. Good for the environment, but not so hot for people.

Back to Tom Julia. I’ll cut straight to the quote:

“Formaldehyde is one of the most common and studied compounds in the world. The body produces some of it everyday [sic]. It shows up in many consumer products; it is also used as the most common adhesive composite-wood products. Because this is the type of chemical they would like to mitigate, California has decided to regulate it specifically in composite-wood products … I think it’s import to note to the consumer that about 98 percent of the emissions of formaldehyde, as they record them in California, is coming form someplace other than composite-wood products. Two thirds of them are coming from automobiles, according to CARB’s own study.

That’s pretty clearly sour grapes. They lost - so why bring it up? Because this is an example of how some building suppliers think. It hardly needs stating that the difference between formaldehyde coming out of your car (outside) and that which comes into your watertight home (inside) is that you’re going to breathe the stuff your house is made from. In short, they’re not looking out for you.

The question I always want to ask is - what’s next? The last thing that got banned as pretty damned toxic was the arsenic based compound that we used for decades to create pressure treated lumber - that weirdly green looking lumber they make fenceposts and foundations with. Full disclosure on that, though - it’s really more for the builder’s protection than yours. The sawdust from that stuff is naaas-TY. Asbestos was used extensively on heating ducts in residential homes. If your heating was put in before about 1972, you’ve probably got it in your house right now.

Unlike food and drugs, there’s no regulating body that certifies building materials for your house. It’s all done after the fact, once we find out that it’s poisonous. So, think about what you’re building your home from. Do you want to use tyvek housewrap? And what on earth is this made from? How about composite decking? PVC interior trim? Or MDF trim?

Huh. This was supposed to be a light reference to a bunch of links where you could get magazines for free. Maybe next time.

Comments(1)