[Greenbuilding] 100 miles builds

[Chris Koehn]

Good thoughts John. No argument that Benson's stuff is more expensive than average.

A wise old preservationist once told me the building that survives is the greenest. And the buildings that survive are the ones that are loved. 
Lots of things called "green" get built these days that are pretty hard to love, for a variety of reasons- from maintenance and operating costs to aesthetics. I wonder how long they'll survive?

Best,

Chris Koehn
TimberGuides
Van Isle

On 2012-02-27, at 7:34 AM, John Straube wrote:

I love what Bensonwood does, and I really love timber frame.  But I think one has to be careful of mis-interpreting website marketing material for a balanced view of the complexity of the situation.  The rhetoric of the website is not well matched to reality, and the tired analogy to aircraft, cars, and cell phones is misplaced.

If you were to buy a 1970's ranch house with a trussed roof, all of the interior walls are reconfigurable, and a opening can be cut into virtually any part of the load-bearing 2x4 wall with little to no effort.  We do this all the time. The cost of building this type of house is literally a fraction of what it would cost to build a timber frame with SIPS and uses a lot smaller trees (not an issue in BC, but it is in most places.).

The baseboard wiring concept is an excellent one, although hardly a Bensonwood innovation, and could be used in many more homes (like many log cabins use). Stacking plumbing is kind of obvious, but not often done because the plan of the home often subverts this. The Heating and cooling section ignore the critical aspect of ventilation, and how this is to be accommodated.  There are many "more flexible" solutions out there, and Bensonwood has chosen just one selection of solutions.  This is to their credit.  However, the cost of their projects are all well above what normal people can afford / are willing to pay for.

If we want simple, low-cost, and flexible homes, most of the technology, components, and products are readily available. Wrapping a 2x4 frame with 3 or 4" of insulation leads to higher R-values than most SIPS, and using an air-water membrane over the 2x4 framing provides better air and water tightness than a SIPS (and SIPS are already pretty good on all these front).  Add a truss (non-load-bearing interior walls) and renewable wood, home-run plumbing, baseboard wiring, etc. can be done in all parts of North America with current trades and products with little price premium (and some savingS). CMHC's FlexHouse concept lays out a lot of the planning issues that one needs to consider. Stewart Brand's book long ago showed the power of considering "layers".
The problem seems to be that most people dont care about these features (e.g., timber frame is chosen for beauty in every case I have been involved with), and would like to believe that we need new high-tech solutions. Or they value fancy finishes over lasting value. There are of course also a lot of of people who just dont know that there are these types of solutions.

It is also quite possible that one could expend more resources designing a house for deconstruction or renovation than building one with some potential for future change out of materials that have very low embodied energy / ease of disposal (compost? fire?).  That said, many new buildings dont even allow for the replacement of "wear parts" like windows and the flexibility of full-span trusses is often not recognized or utilized.


On 12-02-27 12:49 AM, Chris Koehn wrote:
> Fellow timber framer Ted Benson's company Bensonwood Homes has done
> lots of work developing their "open built" wall system. The idea is
> to anticipate refit of various components over the life span of the
> building and make the work
> easy.<http://bensonwood.com/innovation/openbuilt.cfm> I've often
> thought attaching exterior wall systems (such as SIPs) to timber
> frames with structural screws allows for relatively easy disassembly.
> Timber frame's ability to allow reconfiguring of interior spaces
> without affecting structure allows refit naturally as well.
> 
> Chris Koehn TimberGuides Van Isle
> 
> 
> 
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--
> 
Prof. John Straube, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Faculty of Engineering
Dept of Civil Engineering / School of Architecture

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