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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (38878)	6/27/2007 10:56:17 PM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541860

No, I'm not saying Insulated Concrete Form construction is too expensive. It's still relatively uncommon, though. It's more expensive than wood construction or it would be more common. I know of a house in our neighborhood that looks like wood shiplap construction, but if you look closely you can see it's poured concrete using specially sculptured forms. If I were in the market for a new house, I'd investigate that method as well. I do not know all the environmental costs of concrete construction, but I suspect there are just as many as with the wood method. There's a gravel pit I know of where they mine glacial till for concrete manufacture, and I can assure you the people around it are not happy at all about possible expansion. The problem you mention regarding hurricanes and tornadoes is an issue of the quality of building construction and design, not the material used. Houses that fail to survive such events are not designed to survive them. Have you every noticed how well metal houses in trailer parks stand up to tornadoes? Your comment about what people in Mexico do is peculiar. I've never been there, but I've heard it said that one government program after another gets started and then abandoned after a new regime gets in power. One thing about wood: Wood is renewable, and if managed correctly, inexhaustible. I don't have all the facts at my fingertips, but I've read that the energy cost of wood manufacture is much better than other methods.

To: Cogito who wrote (38878)	6/28/2007 12:15:15 AM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541860

I find it hard to believe that people in Mexico are using building materials that are more expensive than we in the States can afford. My son did work on a concrete home in Mexico. When they were ready to hire the roof done (also out of concrete) a pickup truck showed up with about a dozen guys in it. They carried the concrete to the roof in buckets - many of them barefooted. At lunch they took a break and smoked pot. .......They do things different in Mexico. steve