10-05-2014, 05:59 AM
There is a house on South Kopua Rd that is made from cordwood masonry. That is the kind where you see the ends of the logs. The builder first built a cabin that he and his family lived in as he built a larger round house. I was inside the cabin. It was OK and interesting. He appeared to have built with green logs so they shrank and left gaps as opposed to building with dry logs that might swell and crack the mortar. At any rate there was a 1/8" to 1/4" gap at the top of each log.
I assume that the technology is working well enough for them because if someone is competent to build a decent house they are probably automatically competent to judge the finished results and since they continued on to build the main house of the same materials I figure there were no deal-breaking flaws. As for mold and mildew there are physical laws and principles that govern this. I find it believable that a technology that is inherently spongy like cordwood masonry or even straw bale could work if sufficient effort were made to keep rain off like having the first 2 or 3 feet of wall at ground level be concrete and having extreme roof overhangs while more conventional and otherwise tried and true construction methods could suffer from moisture if these issues are not addressed. The cord wood walls I observed had a degree of built-in ventilation that would guarantee drying of the wall as long as rain was kept off it. On the other hand there are modern high performance systems generally known as EIFS (exterior insulation finish systems) that are prone to catastrophic moisture problems if not done exactly right specifically because they are so tight. Sativa, you could easily have seen such an example of an otherwise good building system that failed to address critical ventilation needs.
That being said, there is an inherently greater risk that alternative building methods will miss one or more of these critical issues since they are essentially reinventing the wheel with each house. Also, many systems that look good and in fact are good in non-earthquake areas can look OK here until the next earthquake at which point the flaws become evident. I gave up on trying to use the abundant stone resources on my property because it is a no-go for me to build with un-reinforced masonry and when you calculate how much concrete is needed for a stone wall with essentially a reinforced concrete wall built into it you see that it takes much more concrete to stick the irregular rocks onto the outside. That concrete adds no strength. The rocks add no strength. Both the excess concrete and the rocks do add weight that makes it that the engineered section of the wall must be stronger to resist seismic forces. You would use less concrete if you made a simple poured concrete wall with no stone except for the carefully prescribed aggregate.
I assume that the technology is working well enough for them because if someone is competent to build a decent house they are probably automatically competent to judge the finished results and since they continued on to build the main house of the same materials I figure there were no deal-breaking flaws. As for mold and mildew there are physical laws and principles that govern this. I find it believable that a technology that is inherently spongy like cordwood masonry or even straw bale could work if sufficient effort were made to keep rain off like having the first 2 or 3 feet of wall at ground level be concrete and having extreme roof overhangs while more conventional and otherwise tried and true construction methods could suffer from moisture if these issues are not addressed. The cord wood walls I observed had a degree of built-in ventilation that would guarantee drying of the wall as long as rain was kept off it. On the other hand there are modern high performance systems generally known as EIFS (exterior insulation finish systems) that are prone to catastrophic moisture problems if not done exactly right specifically because they are so tight. Sativa, you could easily have seen such an example of an otherwise good building system that failed to address critical ventilation needs.
That being said, there is an inherently greater risk that alternative building methods will miss one or more of these critical issues since they are essentially reinventing the wheel with each house. Also, many systems that look good and in fact are good in non-earthquake areas can look OK here until the next earthquake at which point the flaws become evident. I gave up on trying to use the abundant stone resources on my property because it is a no-go for me to build with un-reinforced masonry and when you calculate how much concrete is needed for a stone wall with essentially a reinforced concrete wall built into it you see that it takes much more concrete to stick the irregular rocks onto the outside. That concrete adds no strength. The rocks add no strength. Both the excess concrete and the rocks do add weight that makes it that the engineered section of the wall must be stronger to resist seismic forces. You would use less concrete if you made a simple poured concrete wall with no stone except for the carefully prescribed aggregate.