Geopolymers

[tomslate]

Any interest here in using geopolymers to build domes?

http://www.geopolymer.org/

http://geopolymerhouses.wordpress.com/2 ... n-airform/

http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/2011/05/ ... earthbags/

A tangent: http://www.300house.com/blog/2011/06/30 ... nners.html

[Necoras]

I suppose it depends on what your goals are. If it's a superior material (better compression/tensile strength, lower weight, etc.) and available at a cheaper price than Portland cement, then it's certainly worth investigating. If it's an inferior material, but it's being promoted because it's "all natural" then I wouldn't waste my time or money with it. But to some people that's very important. I'm always up for researching new technologies.

[timbau]

I suppose it depends on what your goals are. If it's a superior material (better compression/tensile strength, lower weight, etc.) and available at a cheaper price than Portland cement, then it's certainly worth investigating. If it's an inferior material, but it's being promoted because it's "all natural" then I wouldn't waste my time or money with it. But to some people that's very important. I'm always up for researching new technologies.

I have to agree with you. We have too many folks going off the deep end becasue something is green. They want to feel they're doing their part when in fact they may be causing more harm than good. Take the CFL's for example & the Volt.

A product should offer something better for a reasonable cost or it's not fesable to use unless you have more money than common sense. I doubt that concrete will ever be carbon neutral or a green product. However, for the price it's hard to beat. I would hate to see some of these so called green products used on our highways, bridges, or city high rises.

There are some really nice products out there that would make good substitute for other products. Take, hemp for example. Yet we can't use them becasue of some ridiculous legislation. Industrial hemp is not a drug.

One final thought. We've spent decades passing minimal codes in which to build our structure. Yet has anyone heard of a builder building anything above minimal code. When we get to hide bound by minimal anything then we dumb down the entire process. Yes there should be minimals that we shouldn't go below. However, we need to quit stopping others from building things that are better than code. Take Monolithic domes for example.

Just my 2 cents .....

[timbau]

Any interest here in using geopolymers to build domes?

http://www.geopolymer.org/

http://geopolymerhouses.wordpress.com/2 ... n-airform/

http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/2011/05/ ... earthbags/

A tangent: http://www.300house.com/blog/2011/06/30 ... nners.html

Tom I've kept an eye on many of these solutions. You might want to add Earthships to the mix. All these systems have pro's & con's. Also, I think it would be nice to add the good parts of many of these to a dome build.

As was stated by another person it's going to depend on reality & costs. I believe that David tried some other ways to build a dome cheaper & better. Yet many of these so called better products either didn't meet or were too costly as compared to the existing dome building process. I'm sure that David is looking at many thing to see if they can come up with a better mousetrap.

[mkrepel]

This is pretty interesting stuff. One of the authors has already put some thought into use with an airform, but it looks more like an ecoshell than a MD. I think the hand-applied method would stretch the build time of a large dome considerably. It would probably also necessitate a much thicker wall structure. The insulation question would need to be addressed before we could use the technology in the U.S.


Mike