01-19-2010, 08:28 AM
With regard to centipedes I spoke with someone who as a child lived in a house that had an extensive dry-stacked stone wall. He said thay had a lot of centipedes. The father then grouted between the rocks, not as a structural measure but to deny the centipedes access. After that there were noticeably fewer centipedes. They must like the following things:
1. Rock. Don't know why but maybe it holds heat better.
2. Cracks to hide in.
3. Cracks close to the ground. I figure this because otherwise why would elevated houses have fewer centipedes? It seems logical that they would not like to travel either horizontally or vertically where they are exposed. I have also heard that a CMU stemwall a few feet high with wood construction above allows you to detect termites before they do damage because they don't like to travel exposed and so they build mud tunnels that give them away.
The benefit of building with individual piers where the ground is not flat enough for a slab is very real, can't argue against that. I only mean to say that there are benefits to a slab that are independent of whether the rest of the house is raised and which in my opinion you can't reproduce without the slab.
1. Rock. Don't know why but maybe it holds heat better.
2. Cracks to hide in.
3. Cracks close to the ground. I figure this because otherwise why would elevated houses have fewer centipedes? It seems logical that they would not like to travel either horizontally or vertically where they are exposed. I have also heard that a CMU stemwall a few feet high with wood construction above allows you to detect termites before they do damage because they don't like to travel exposed and so they build mud tunnels that give them away.
The benefit of building with individual piers where the ground is not flat enough for a slab is very real, can't argue against that. I only mean to say that there are benefits to a slab that are independent of whether the rest of the house is raised and which in my opinion you can't reproduce without the slab.