[Greenbuilding] Glass ceiling

Sun Nov 18 14:12:25 CST 2012

Salvage certainly is a tough one up front. Much easier to buy new. But
everything about green building is paid in full up front with cash.
Done. Normal building is about paying on credit and making sure
somebody else gets the bill.

Gennaro Brooks-Church
EcoBrooklyn.com
347-244-3016
22 2nd St., Brooklyn.
This email was sent from my phone.

On Nov 18, 2012, at 9:31 AM, Tim Brown <tim34 at optonline.net> wrote:

> 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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>
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