[Greenbuilding] neat idea

[RT]

On Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:38:30 -0400, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> now, you're talking. An ancient style of roof in Western Europe (and  
> perhaps
> beyond) I learned as "Moench & Nonne" or 'monk & nun'. The clay tiles

Years ago when the Vikings first landed in North America at Newfoundland,  
they made those roofing tiles on-site by using their thighs as the form  
over which the still-plastic clay was moulded to make the half-cylinder  
tiles.

The half cylinders were actually tapered (as is the human thigh "form",  
narrower at the knee end).

I forget which end of the taper was placed at the upper end on the lower  
course (ie those which had the concave side facing the sky) but the upper  
course (convex side up) had the taper reversed IIRC. Hey, it was centuries  
ago. Eh ?

The tiles were fired on site as well, before installation. Lots of  
evidence of tiles that didn't survive the firing process at the unearthed  
settlement sites (probably due to PPP on the part of those Vikings. You  
know those Barbarians, like bulls in a china shop-- can't be bothered with  
planning)

				-- * --
On the subject of the heading, I have to confess that I thought that it  
wasn't a "neat" idea at all. (risking the wrath of our ListMama for  
disagreeing with her... but she's far away so ah ain't a-scared)

A sheet of corrugated steel would have a useful service life of 70 years  
or more, finding re-use after re-use for several sets of users.

Punching crude holes (and I do mean crude ... you try cutting a neat,  
round hole into corrugate steel with only rudimentary hand tools) into  
those perfectly serviceable sheets of steel to accommodate a plastic  
bottle (whose useful service life is a few years at most due to  
degradation as a result of full exposure to UV) , and having to goop up  
the steel-to-plastic junction with honking big gobs of gooey glop to  
create a joint that is doomed to failure in the short term ... didn't  
strike me as being as an idea I'd want to foist upon anyone.

I think that the "designers" would have been well advised to have spent a  
bit more effort thinking the idea through a bit further (if at all)  
acknowledging the fragility and short service life of the plastic bottle  
and perhaps designing a properly flashed/sealed sleeve into which the  
bottles would fit, allowing for easy removal and replacement of the  
bottle, perhaps even replacing the plast-echhhh! bottle with a glass  
bottle.

Even then, I don't think that I'd design the bottle lights so as to  
require punching a hole through and ruining the sheets of steel. I think  
that I'd look at maybe leaving either a gap at the ridge (if a peaked  
roof) or simply leaving a gap between sheets of steel, and then devise  
some way to use the water-filled bottles to weather-proof the gap.



-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
< A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  C A >
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit REPLY)