[Greenbuilding] insulating cinder block walls?

[RT]

Sounds like a job for Strawbale Lite.

IIRC, Reuben is located somewhere on the West Coast, in a climate that's  
relatively mild and since the shed is not for human occupation,  
full-thickness strawbale walls wouldn't really be necessary, especially  
moreso given the miniscule interior footprint.

So, how about:

(1) Harvesting four of those discarded mattresses that appear regularly at  
the curbs on garbage day in most urban centres

(2) Remove the fabric covering to reveal the coil springs / wire frame  
assembly

(3) Spread the thickness of the former mattress by inserting temporary  
props

(4) Clip some mesh to the faces of the mattress

(5) Fill the space with straw (or other insulating material)

(6) Remove the props and BOI-N-N-NGGGG let the springs compress the  
insulation between the mesh faces

(7)  Make a picture frame to serve as a form into which a plaster mix of  
your choice can be placed

(8) Set the form on a flat surface on top of salvaged polyethylene sheet  
which will function as a separation membrane

(9) Place plastering mud inside form

(10) Plop your spring tension-compressed , meshed-faced straw panel into  
the wet mud, ensuring that the mesh on the face gets fully embedded

(11) Place identical picture frame form over top face of straw mattress  
panel, suspended at proper height by short scrap lumber cut-offs

(12) Place wet paster mud into top form

(13) Do any desired artistic embellishement to surface of plaster (easy  
since you're working on a horizontal surface and which would be otherwise  
difficult on a vertical surface)  ie sculpting, bead moulded edges, stone  
dash, tile mosaics etc

(14) Cover the thing and go for a 7-15 day bike ride and/or snowshoe hike  
(or ho-hum, do some work) and let it cure properly

(15) Tilt-up the panel using the polyethylene ground sheet to lift and

(16) Voila !  Insulated modular wall panel that kept a bunch of bulky  
mattresses out of the landfill.

(The roof could be made from a king-sized mattress, configured as an  
arched panel with salvaged patio door tempered glass as a rainscreen  
cladding over.)

But if you prefer the cinder block route, I think I'd look at an insulated  
core, double wythe wall, using 4" thick masonry units rather than futz  
around with trying to insulate a single wythe 6" wall.


-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom ADT1
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

On Mon, 02 Mar 2015 11:41:23 -0500, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> I'm building a small sound-insulated shed interior footprint: 36"x45" to  
> house some dust collection equipment. Three of the six sides of this box  
> >will be insulated: the one shared with the building it is adjacent to,  
> the floor, and the ceiling. Of the three remaining walls, one will be a  
> weather >stripped door. The last two are 6" cinder block which I plan to  
> fill with fine gravel. The 5hp motor which powers this dust collection  
> is expected to >produce some heat, and the air drawn into the shed will  
> be pretty much immediately exhausted back into the shop space, so any  
> insulation I might >add would be primarily to reduce heat loss of this  
> air-passing-through, more than the air in the shed while the dust  
> collection isn't running. I'm >thinking of installing a baffle on the  
> return port to help this be so. Given those parameters do any of you  
> think it worth adding some type of >insulation to the cinder block walls?
> Thanks very much.
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