[Greenbuilding] Glass ceiling

[Tim Brown]

That's   a   pretty  hard  hitting  commentary but  thought  provoking.

On Nov 17, 2012, at 10:41 PM, John Salmen wrote:

> That is a tough one. When I started with green building is was primarily to
> use 2nd growth wood as an alternative to using fungicide treated framing
> lumber (which was the standard at the time). That worked best with large
> dimensioned lumber for structure (timberframe). I liked it as it made both
> the best cut use of a 2nd growth (smaller) tree and kept the wood in a large
> dimension for potential re-use. Made sense. It also made sense to isolate
> the different functions and materials so they could be kept isolated. I grew
> to like plasteeech eps board insulation for that reason as it formed a
> removable infill or skin. For a while all my foundations were block (bit
> hard to do in earthquake design).
> 
> Basically I was designing residential structures the way I used to design
> commercial ones. Buildings that need to maintain flexibility. I bet most of
> your significant salvage is from commercial buildings. 
> 
> Hard to maintain in residential structures as they just don't have the
> economy to support good material choices so the materials don't lend
> themselves to efficient reuse (unless reuse consists of regrinding and
> remaking - which is where the recycling industry has gone). We have
> thousands of miles of thin cement board siding on homes that will be ground
> up and probably reused as something in the near future. Everything now is
> recyclable (if you build sufficient quantity of something - somebody will
> buy it) but that is not the same as re-usable or even re-claimable and by
> that I mean a ground up piece of wood has no claim to its origin. It no
> longer shows us its grain or any history of its use.
> 
> Re-using and re-claiming is also not necessarily a good thing. Do I want a
> floor from wood that came from an old factory floor with cells filled with
> un-re-claimed heavy metals and toxins? For decades in my region cedar siding
> was commonly finished with used hydraulic oil from the logging industry. We
> had a client supply my shop with reclaimed beautiful old growth cedar siding
> that he wanted to use for interior finishing - and as soon as we ran it
> though the planer the wood reeked of petro chemicals and was unusable. Every
> cell in the wood to the core was contaminated.
> 
> I had another client that had purchased lovely old fir flooring from a 100
> year old department store. I asked him if he really wanted to live with a
> centuries worth of commercial cleaning products not to mention
> disinfestations products - that we would expose and then cover with a
> 'natural' breathable finish? His answer was he wished I hadn't made that
> comment.
> 
> Then there is the story from the boston playgrounds (and Toronto) that were
> built where centuries old housing existed. Children playing there were
> subsequently documented with high lead levels. They found perfect
> rectangular outlines of lead contaminated soil where the old houses existed
> and had been scraped and painted every five years or so with lead based
> paints. There are thousands of similar stories.
> 
> 
> Like I said - recycling is a tough one - I just don't think we have the
> knowledge to do it well 
> 
> Sorry for the rant.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greenbuilding [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org]
> On Behalf Of gennaro brooks-church
> Sent: November-17-12 5:45 PM
> To: Green Building
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Glass ceiling
> 
> Along the same lines of separating two panes of glass: i am learning that
> one of the biggest talents of a green builder os their ability to unbuild
> stuff then built it into something that is easily unbuilt later.
> 
> Gennaro Brooks-Church
> EcoBrooklyn.com
> 347-244-3016
> 22 2nd St., Brooklyn.
> This email was sent from my phone.
> 
> On Nov 17, 2012, at 8:03 PM, Clarke Olsen <colsen at fairpoint.net> wrote:
> 
>> Something I learned the hard way: if you lap glass panels, water will
> capilery back into the joint.
>> Stuff will grow in that thin space, and the best way to keep it clean is
> not to let them touch.
>> I think that the gap needs to be about 3mm (1/8"). If you want to make it
> tight, maybe a bead of clear silicone..
>> Another hard lesson, the amazing power of that caulk not to let go when
> you need to take something apart.
>> Maybe temporary window caulk would be easier to deal with.
>> Clarke Olsen
>> clarkeolsendesign.com
>> 373 route 203
>> Spencertown, NY 12165
>> USA
>> 518-392-4640
>> colsen at taconic.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Nov 17, 2012, at 3:50 PM, Chris Koehn wrote:
>> 
>>> I am in the process us building a glass roof entry using glass similar to
> yours, though 34" tall. Tempered deck railing panels that were mis-ordered.
> Roof has a 3 in 12 pitch and 3 panes of glass are installed shingle-style
> over steps in wood rafters.
>>> 
>>> Chris
>>> TimberGuides
>>> Vancouver Island
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