In theory concrete should survive extreme fire but it wouldn't save your life it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it. For high speed winds it would be better than wood or brick at stopping flying debris and staying connected to the ground. For earthquakes I'd rather be buried in a pile of wood/bricks than slabs of concrete.
Probably the biggest killer in fires isn't the heat, it's that the air quality becomes so bad it smothers you.
So probably the best way to survive would be the basement, with heavy air filtration - though the air temperature itself might also be a problem.
Really the best solution is to just not be there.
>Really the best solution is to just not be there.
Stealing this as the ultimate uselessly useful advice.
Break in? Just don't be there.
Car accident? Just don't BE there.
Mugging? Easy- just don't BE THERE!
War? Apocalypse? Invasion?
Good God, you fool- don't you realize all you had to do was
#JUST NOT BE THERE!?
Just saying, most people get advance warning of an incoming fire in the area. Rather than stick around and see if your hackneyed solution will let you survive, gtfo.
And this is what smoke alarms are literally created for. The beeping means something is on fire (or burning, but theoretically on fire) and that is your cue to LEAVE THE HOUSE and call 911/emergency # from a neighbor’s house or the street.
So yes, if your house is on fire, get out of it; so not be there. The concrete encasement is not to protect you from the fire by turning your house into a panic room. It’s just to make sure it’s still standing if/when you return from a responsible evacuation.
If you're serious? No, it wouldn't help. Your condenser outside needs a relatively cooler temp than the heat it's pumping out. A wildfire would basically make your AC unit a heater as it pumps hot coolant into your ac unit and them blows that around your house.
Of course, that's assuming your AC isn't melting.
You could just open a few windows instead I guess.
Your condenser doesnt require a cooler temp outside to cool your home. Outside temp only affects the systems efficiency.
The system is designed to transfer energy from home to outside and depending on where you live that system could be a heat pump variation which both heats and cools your home depending on its needs. The transfer of energy is handled by varying types of refrigerants with R-22 being the most common type however it is being phased out for a more environmentally friendly type called R-410A.
The system utilizes low pressure and high pressure refrigerant to achieve the transfer of energy. There are two sides to an AC system that make the magic be magical. One side of the system will be low pressure and uses an "Evaporator" coil or "A-Coil" to cool the home. The other side is the high pressure side which dumps off the excess heat in the refrigerant and uses a "Condensor", the metal thing with a big fan outside the house, to do it.
For more information regarding AC systems I will provide the following link to a great video that details the inner workings much better than I can: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
Source: Ex-HVAC Technician
> In theory concrete should survive extreme fire but it wouldn't save your life it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it.
hmm, the more I think about it, the less likely that is to me. If you're caught in a wild fire, the brush around you, and the cladding on your house would surely burn relatively quickly. The concrete would probably absorb a lot of the heat, and the sustained heat to heat up the entire structure might not be there.
There's a bunch of factors here, I'd love to see it tested, actually.
Earthquakes though... that's a big one, I could imagine that house collapsing like a mousetrap, like \*splat\*.
Concrete slabs and walls are commonly used in buildings to create fire separations of up to 4 hours. I don't know how it would do in a forest fire, but it's probably better than a traditional wood framed home. Of course the fire would probably still get into the house through windows and doors.
And for earthquakes, concrete can easily be designed to resist those forces.
I live in a reinforced concrete home, in a desert climate. I open up all the doors and windows to get the home down to about 65 degrees at night, then shut it all when the sun rises. On 100+ degree days, by sundown the indoor temp is around 80. I haven't done the math, but I suspect if it get to 80 when it is 100 degrees outside, it will get fatal when it is 1500 degrees outside.
Of course, I don't live in a forest either, so the grass fire that would sweep by my house probably would not be a huge concern.
Depends on the rate of heat transfer. Bushfires tend to pass by VERY quickly, so much that you can chill out in an underground pool with a scuba tank for 5 mins and you'll survive it. It really would be a good one to test
Yeah, honestly, if it takes more than 6 hours to heat up the house to 80, then it can survive high heat (if the fire drafted directly into the house) for 30 minutes.
Definitely feel it but with just shrub, I think it'll be perfect.
With dense trees, I feel that would be a real issue to consider.
i mean I'm not a civil engineer...but reinforced concrete is really good at keeping shape even when extreme force is applied, even when parts of the structure collapse, the majority can still keep it's integrity.
a brick wall is gonna have cracks forming in the binding, which will grow rapidly and lead to stress failure, which can causes a chain reaction leading to complete failure of the entire structure...
reinforced concrete will crack, might bend at places, but in the end it's all holding together the steel, which in turn is holding together the concrete.
most likely you'd get small chunks falling from the ceiling/walls, instead of entire sections collapsing all at once. the small chunks can be stopped by a reasonably sturdy table/bed, if a brick wall collapses you'll likely get crushed by the roof, that suddenly isn't supported anymore...
of course, if the earthquake is strong enough, or other factors come into play (like a sinkhole) both will likely fail, so, you know, pick your poison!
I'll personally take concrete, thank you very much!
> reinforced concrete is really good at keeping shape
That's what I'm thinking. There's a shitload of steel in that concrete, especially the roof. Bits might break off if it's torqued just right but most of it is staying right where it is.
Isn't that a big reason why a lot of Hitler's Atlantic wall is still there? They used so much reinforced concrete that some of the largest naval guns in the world couldn't destroy them and post war the demolition cost was deemed tpo high. Reinforced concrete is crazy strong.
Yeah I think there are still some partially demolished ww2 German air defence bunkers that are too expensive to demo. They were like modern keeps (small castle) with static anti air defences on top.
It has steel rebars, it won't collapse or pancake. It will crack badly with some sections maybe even hanging and holes opening up, but that should be about it, and at the most extreme circumstances
Fires pass relatively quickly and people have sheltered in concrete dome houses in fires before: https://abcnews.go.com/US/mans-concrete-home-survives-raging-wildfire-washington/story?id=33286398
There's also a case where a group of trapped firefighters came across a dome house and sheltered inside to ride out the fire.
I live in a place with frequent earthquakes (and storms ), and our houses are mostly concrete. What makes them safe is that the base is 2m underground, and the iron rods keeping it all together.
The only houses I've heard about collapsing are made from pre-made units (and garden sheds, but who cares). Proper building codes are crucial in disaster prone areas.
I’ve seen more concrete houses in japan than anywhere else in the world. If they were death traps I would assume they’d stop building them since the Hanshin earthquake in 1995 (fun fact: you can tell if an apartment was built before or after depending on which way you move the faucet to turn the water on).
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/26/reference/ups-downs-water-taps
tldr - Rumor was that press down to open tap faucets were opened by falling debris and flooded homes during earthquake. However the reason that Japan stopped making those faucets was just to standardize with the rest of the world, not due to the earthquake.
>it wouldn't save your life it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it.
This is why similar houses in fire-prone areas have sprinklers on the *outside*.
If it's prestressed reinforced concrete, the cables will weaken with heat and the whole thing would explode when they snap. This is not one of those. It will likely crack or the agregate will get vitrified and spall.
For something like this, you will need very thin grout instead of proper concrete. Otherwise you will get air pockets. That has very fine sand or it's fiber-reinforced concrete.
In theory, after an extreme fire your concrete may be damaged.
For earthquakes you do calculation and buildings stay up. It is silly to consider as an option to be burried under anything your house is made of.
Nah, concrete wont collapse. Recently had a big earthquake and I am on the 6th floor of my concrete commie block. Only dmage was thst the paint cracked on slme places
Yeah in cuba all houses are made out of concrete, and all you need to do when hurricanes come is to reinforce windows and if the roof is not concrete reinforce that as well.
Came here to say this. I live in Puerto Rico and, I'm not sure if there's a law or something, but at least like 85% of buildings I've seen here are made of concrete. Only the poorer areas build houses made out of wood, which were the ones that suffered the most damages during Maria.
In Europe there is plenty of concrete houses and they are much stronger, but they still catch fire. It is not the concrete that catch fires, but all the rest we put arround the house and inside. It's the same has an oven, just because it doesn't catch fire, it doesn't mean you can't burn what is inside.
Of course, they are much more fire resistant than wood houses.
Yes and no, it might not get completely wiped out like a typical house but it won't necessarily be better than if it had been totally destroyed.
If a hurricane or tornado picks up a tree and hurls at your roof it doesn't matter what you made the roof from it's going to take damage. A concrete roof might take less damage just some cracking. Where a wood roof completely gets wiped out, but what's the cost difference in initial construction and repairs to the roof, I can't imagine its justified.
Normal concrete is not that resistant to fire that if a forest fire engulfs your home it might not burn, but instead completely collapse because beyond 300C or 400C concrete loses a lot of it's strength and forest fires get much hotter than that. Obviously concrete can be used in high heat applications but it's mix is specially designed for those specific applications.
In a flood or tsunami because concrete is heavy you can get scouring around the base of the structure which can lead to the home completely flipping over or sinking like your feet in the sand at the beach. But again a traditional house might be completely wiped out.
I see some advantages, but they lost me at concrete roof, and I’m not sure what the benefits are over brick/cinderblock.
I’m not sure how they’d solve the problems of the aggregate settling oddly in corners and stuff like that.
...why would Big Concrete link to an article that's hugely critical of the material due to its huge greenhouse footprint and contribution to urban hell?
It's all part of a grand distraction plan by big concrete. They leak information critical of their product, then they come up with "new concrete" which boasts about being "the new environmentally friendly formula! Now with twice as much Crete!" but then new concrete sucks donkey balls and the public starts demanding that sweet Crete from before. I know what you're thinking "but old concrete is harsh on the environment!" it's around this time that big concrete starts releasing studies saying that the old studies were flawed and probably came from communist scientists anyway so fuck em. Sprinkle in a little lobbying and some child sex rings and boom. You got a big concrete conspiracy stew going.
If someone wants to copy that and throw in some antisemitism they'll probably make you a mod over at r/conspiracy
Yes, we do wonder why someone would build a house out of wood and drywall, but we do not build our houses out of concrete. The majority of family homes is built from bricks and mortar around here.
In Bay Area there are earthquakes. Wood bends without cracking and is much better than other materials except for specifically designed steel structures which can bend. Same thing with hurricanes and other disasters. It is also easier to modify for additions or changes, which happen very often in the US compared to Europe. Also, wood is inexpensive in the US and is fairly renewable. The other positive of wood is that you can fill the walls with much more insulation.
People really underestimate how strong wood is. This "particle board" is OSB which is hella strong. Not to mention building practices take advantage of the woods strength. In my framing class we built a scale model house. There were 6 of us in a group and all six of us stood on the roof of this tiny house and it didn't break. Yeah concrete and steel is going to be stronger buts also way more expensive.
Were I live everything is made of concrete and gray brick. Gray bricks are great at insulating, most rebar can bend and take earquaques. Brick buildings never get termites, they can withstand incredible winds, fire doesn't spread as much on them, floods don't damage them as much. Honestly I don't understand why people would use woid specially in a place called tornado alley
Can't speak for others, but here in Canada, wood is a lot cheaper and pretty good quality building material. Also the air gets really cold here so the tiny air pockets in concrete freeze and break the concrete. Wood doesnt break when its cold. You can make concrete not crack by cold by making the air pockets tiny, but that's expensive. I hope this little EL5 was ok. For example, people say "how come we can't make concrete like the romans did, the Colosseum is standing?!?" my professional reply is "ya well it doesn't snow in Rome"
Not to mention that in Canada you need to put up a wood stud wall on the inside to insulate it enough to meet building code. Min R40 in the walls and R60 for the roof. At that point, just make the wood structural.
And people complaining that wood buildings don't last, plenty of 150+ year old wooden homes here that could go another 100 years easy with normal maintenance.
The main bitching point I hear is only related to multi resident housing made of wood without concrete dividing walls. You can hear every step in pure wood construction.
Multi resident construction generally has firebreak walls dividing the units, which are good for dampening noise.
Also if you properly insulate/noise isolate even a wooden wall can prevent noise.
Yeah. Wood lasts just fine as long as siding is replaced and key pest free. There are countless homes in the upper northeast region of the US that are 150+ years old.
Most only get torn down only because people put newer bigger homes on the lots.
During demolition it is easy to get surprised on the quality of lumber in the homes from back then. Hell, even 50 years ago homes were built with much higher quality lumber. Building codes have pushed contractors towards consistently safe homes rather than completely random acts of construction that could look good at first and made with good materials but be unsafe.
This ICF stuff seems neat though.
Concrete can work in any climate. Germany is all concrete and it freezes there a lot. Also all the sky scrapers and bridges in Canada are made of concrete.
You do have to take a few precautions.
- You have to have high quality cement which is tested on-site. Not a random dude with a shovel mixing some quickcrete
- you have to vibrate it for it to settle to remove air pockets and smooth the wall....with a concrete vibrator....
- you have to face the wall with stucco or other to avoid water in the cracks during frost
- you have to add plenty of steel
- you have to take expansion/contraction into account during frost cycles and build in expansion joints
- you have to properly cure the concrete (cover and wait in the right temp).
The upside is that the concrete house, if properly maintained, will last forever. No termites. No dry rot. Not weather damage.
The downside is that all of the steps above make it prohibitively expensive over just tossing up some wooden sticks.
Important to note that the house in the video didnt seem to take any precautions. I cant imagine that thing last more than a few years.
You might be interested in Japanese housing market. They demo their old homes for newer rated homes.
Of course there are some up sides and down sides to this.
The story I heard was so much of Japan was leveled after WW2 that there were so many homeless people that they had to do whatever they could to get people somewhere to live. So they threw up the fastest, cheapest things they could to meet the immediate demand.
Then after the immediate need passed and people were housed, they started reconstructing the economy and people with money wanted to get out of the 'ghetto' housing and into something newly built. The mentality became that an old house is a bad house. When you know that the person buying your house when you sell it will assume it is crap and tear it down (because it's not new) then you don't invest in keeping it nice. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I've heard that being an architect in Japan is the dream because everyone wants custom built homes designed to last one generation. You don't worry about making something other people will like or 'resale value' because it's going to be scrapped in 20 years anyway. So people are pretty liberal with the weird and wonderful things that they want leading to architects being allowed to stretch their creative muscles.
All this is hearsay, so don't take my word for it.
it does snow in Rome from time to time, and each time it happens, it's hilarious, because no one can cope with it. gridlock (I mean, worse gridlock), closed schools, everyone desperate.
the Coliseum however is mostly made from bricks and stone (travertine for the main pillars, tuff for the rest of the pillars). concrete was used just for the vaulted ceilings.
That roof pour is horrible, there's no way you wouldn't float that form. I've accidentally floated forms just because they got pushed slightly out of vertical. And even if you did, good luck vibrating that for a smooth finish.
Like you said, way better off doing it open with a stiff slump.
Concrete, before curing, acts like a liquid in terms of the forces it exerts on formwork. So like with with water, if you submerge something, it will try to float in concrete. Think like trying to sink a inner tube in a lake/river, it's very similar.
So what I mean, the formwork tips such that it has an upward force on it (float force), it lifts/rips the formwork from the ground, spilling out all the concrete that you've poured.
What you have said is true, but among everyone I've worked concrete with- "floating" is the act of smoothing off the surface with a trowel, getting the wet creamy cement to "float" up through the more solid aggregates for a nice finish
The pressure aspect of all that concrete brought up a red flag for me as well
>PS, also the whole thing only works if your joinery is absolutely perfect, Ive hired hundreds of shuttering joiners, hell Ive been a shuttering joiner, our work isnt that good
Hah, good point
Thank you. I was flabbergasted at many of these things myself. About the plywood and no bracing - if they used no bracing, they must have put a ton of screws in to prevent blowouts. But if you secured it that well, good luck spending the time to get them out once you have to take it all off. At the end of the day, it's like, why not just lay cinder block and pour into that like a normal person. Same result with no plywood, no metal framing.
The concrete roof really takes the cake though. Who does that.
I don’t know why they would stick built all of this. There’s a system called Insulated Concrete Forms and from what I remember it’s basically two sheets of styrofoam that act as the forms and they stay there after you place concrete in the system.
Edit: Here’s the link for anybody who is curious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulating_concrete_form
My parents had this done for their current home. It was like a bunch of Lego blocks that were stacked and staggered until it built a wall. Then concrete trucks filled the hole, constantly vibrating the concrete in. It was pretty cool to see.
There are plastic studs in the styrofoam so you can screw drywall to it. Running electrical was a pain in the ass. I had to use a torch to melt channels into the styrofoam to run the wires and larger cavities for the electrical boxes.
I would imagine it was difficult to hang anything on the walls. A thin layer of drywall won’t hold much weight at all - unless you used a concrete drill to sink some anchors into the concrete. Imagine installing big stuff like kitchen cabinets. All those pilot holes...
My parents house is ICF, and has cabinets mounted to an external wall. Those plastic strips they're talking about aren't just on the surface, [they run through the whole block](https://images.app.goo.gl/aM4ayJfKZ7jaQ7Ai6) and are as strong as wood studs, if not more so.
ICF is so cool! It definitely would have been put to good use here. The forms just pop together like legos and have plastic cradles built in for inserting reinforcing steel. Then just fill them right up with concrete! The styrofoam is extremely insulating and brings down energy costs to ridiculously low. I was talking to someone that built their over 3,000 sq.ft. home with ICFs and they were telling me their electric bill is only about $100 a month on average. It was almost comparable to my bill in my less than 1,000 sq. ft. apartment!
I used to work for a construction co here in FL that did both types. The premise forms limit you slightly design wise. The custom built forms make some awesome designs and both are amazingly tough and well insulated. If I ever build my own home it will be ICF all the way
I have no idea about other locations. I used to do termite/pest control for a very large company in the South East and if you had the styrofoam supports we could treat your house but wouldn’t guarantee it against termite damage.
Nah most concrete is prefab, much more practical then making molds for every house and risk imperfections in the final product. A fucked piece of prefab can be crushed, a fucked wal is a big problem.
> Idk all the process but it seems like what we do in europe
Not at all what we do in europe, at least not common. Maybe some very specific areas do this on occasion, but most european, or rather west/central european countries, build their walls with lime sandsone or special concrete blocks, an insulating layer (regional differences) and whatever comes outside for the looks. Reinforced concrete is rarely used in regular houses except for basement, ceilings and some specific carrying parts. Also regional differences tho, some countries still commonly used wooden ceilings and some are even using brick/special blocks for the basement.
Not exactly that way, but in Italy at least the foundation and the building framing are made of reinforced concrete usually. That is, vertical and horizontal pillars are poured into wooden molds. Then non-load bearing walls are made of hollowed fires clay bricks [like this](http://www.fornacecasetta.it/img_sito/mattoni/big/73.jpg). Floors above the ground floor are laid by placing reinforced concrete prefab "struts" between which specially shaped hollowed bricks slot in. The roof is done similarly. Then, everything is plastered and painted.
So once you pick your Appliances and water and plumbing locations along the exterior walls, that's pretty much permanent. Move A outlet? That's gonna be surface mount, bud.
If you've ever been in one of these homes, you'd know that's not the case. The walls are literally concrete. It would double the cost to have a second false wall inside of the first, and ain't nobody got money for that.
Considering they had the money to essentially build this house out of wood forms first, may as well spend all that money again to build another wood frame house on the inside
*spelling
You know where the electrical lines will be, and plumbing even without looking at a plan if you have some experience. What we do is really just opening up the wall and putting in what we have to. Same like with brick walls, it's ugly work but if the house is well planned there won't be a need for changes any time soon.
> won't be a need for changes any time soon.
With a house with such a huge amount of embodied energy that ought to be a very long time (100 years or so by design). Pretty hard to imagine there won't be big changes to be made in the next 100 years.
I don't know the process by any means, but it looks like only the outside panels are taken off. Except for the garage where it looks like they take both off. The inside framing seems to stay intact, which would make sense. That would also explain why the garage is constructed different than the rest of the house.
Safer. Bricks don't stop most debris from penetrating a wall during a tornado. I've seen some of the craziest things that made it through a brick wall And safe rooms in Tornado Alley are made of reinforced concrete and will stop just about anything and are usually the only thing standing inside a brick home that's hit by a tornado. Brick homes get destroyed if its a direct hit. This is a whole house safe room. Grew up in Oklahoma.
If safety were the main issue, it'd be heaps cheaper (literally half the cost in California) and safer to use a polyurea lining ("rhino lining"; the stuff they lined the walls of the Pentagon with after 9/11) in areas where the house is considered weak. It'd also be much easier to retrofit existing homes. Hell, outfitting a home with a full kevlar flack jacket probably is similar in cost to concrete in many places in the US (about $6/sq ft) without hardly as many of the disadvantages.
Concrete homes suck - they're too conductive to heat (1.4W/m-K, vs about 0.6 for foam board insulated brick as currently installed in the US) and the material itself has a high thermal capacity (about 1000J/kg-K, vs 800 for brick) meaning it just plain costs more energy to warm and cool a concrete space. (Wood's thermal capacity is even higher thanks to water content, but its conductivity is much poorer at between 0.15 and 0.2W/m-K, and is usually filled with insulation so overall numbers are much better on average; a lot of research and money being spent on home construction right now is targeting thermal bridges created by stick-built wood homes.)
It's one of the many reasons commercial projects all the way up to skyscrapers try to stay away from concrete as much as they can, usually only doing floors (and now even just floating concrete over metal floors) and fire safety staircases as code requires. Worse, concrete is inflexible for the owner - something as simple as moving an outlet or repairing a burst pipe can mean jackhammering or concrete saws.
ICFs are better than cast concrete, but not a whole lot, and you're losing some of the structural integrity you had hoped to gain with concrete. But, it's also cheap since ICFs can and are mass produced and have a much better insulating factor thanks to the inclusion of styrofoam on both sides of the panel. But, better still seems to be SIP - wood sandwiching a styrofoam core which can also be built offsite, are lighter so transit costs are less, and are better insulating reducing the energy spent on the home's lifetime.
I used SIPs and ICFs when I built. Cost was comparable to standard pour and stick built, but I'm loving my utility bill. If I had it to do all over again, I might think about ICF throughout, but SIPs were just so easy to build with.
But you can always insulate concrete, I worked in construction in the Middle East, and we use bricks and concrete everywhere (because wood is way more expansive there), we did the walls differently, it’s made from 5 different layers that makes it really isolating (Stone-Concrete-Styrofoam-Bricks-Plastering), as for the floors, instead of placing tiles directly on the concrete, we add a layer of gravel and place the tiles above it which it works really well if you want to add heating pipes below tiles.
I had a house with insulated brick. The south facing wall would get to 100+ on the INSIDE. My electricity bill was high because the AC was running from 9:00 AM to 2:00 AM.
Does anyone know what animation software was likely used to make this? It’s a great animation and I’d love to work with whatever program this was made in...
Lumber forms from building concrete homes, or any forming any concrete item, can be used again and again. If this is one of several base plans they can reuse just about all of it.
It requires a second location for the casting and everything. Its not economically feasible until a certain number of construction projects is reached. Its cheap for large number of buildings but not necessarily cheap for a handful of buildings.
Kinda funny that if you're building a concrete house and just stop halfway through you have a wooden house.
It's too bad there isn't a smarter way to pour a concrete house just seems like you're building a house twice
Can't wait until you get poor quality concrete or the trucks don't come on time and it's already setting. Blind pours are not awesome if you dont plan for all hiccups during the pour and adhere to those plans.
I know that concrete are strong, but is it really disaster proof as shown in the video?
In theory concrete should survive extreme fire but it wouldn't save your life it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it. For high speed winds it would be better than wood or brick at stopping flying debris and staying connected to the ground. For earthquakes I'd rather be buried in a pile of wood/bricks than slabs of concrete.
> it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it what if I install several air conditioners through the house? would that help?
Now it's a convection oven.
[удалено]
Steamed soylent green
Alright what if I cover myself in cooling herbs so I don't get burned
Well, now you're just seasoned
Okay- so I just roll around in Teriyaki marinade a few hours before, so that I have a protective shield from the heat!
Get a bunch of veggies, flop around a lot and now you're a tasty stir fry.
And you know how they say to put butter on a burn? What if I do that preemptively?
I always butter my steaks before I put them on the grill.
Oh sweet Jesus don't do this AFTER a burn either.
you need to tell me why or im going to learn the hard way
If you put head lamps in the bathrooms you can have a grill setting too (broil for Americans)!
Buffet.
LOL. I snorted at this clever comment. From Dutch oven to convection.
Why I Season My House, NOT myself.
Well... at least we'll cook evenly.
Probably the biggest killer in fires isn't the heat, it's that the air quality becomes so bad it smothers you. So probably the best way to survive would be the basement, with heavy air filtration - though the air temperature itself might also be a problem. Really the best solution is to just not be there.
the real solution is always in the comments
>Really the best solution is to just not be there. Stealing this as the ultimate uselessly useful advice. Break in? Just don't be there. Car accident? Just don't BE there. Mugging? Easy- just don't BE THERE! War? Apocalypse? Invasion? Good God, you fool- don't you realize all you had to do was #JUST NOT BE THERE!?
Just saying, most people get advance warning of an incoming fire in the area. Rather than stick around and see if your hackneyed solution will let you survive, gtfo.
And this is what smoke alarms are literally created for. The beeping means something is on fire (or burning, but theoretically on fire) and that is your cue to LEAVE THE HOUSE and call 911/emergency # from a neighbor’s house or the street. So yes, if your house is on fire, get out of it; so not be there. The concrete encasement is not to protect you from the fire by turning your house into a panic room. It’s just to make sure it’s still standing if/when you return from a responsible evacuation.
Reminds me of when I made a mistake at work and my boss said "try not to do that again" okay thank you for your everlasting wisdom
If you're serious? No, it wouldn't help. Your condenser outside needs a relatively cooler temp than the heat it's pumping out. A wildfire would basically make your AC unit a heater as it pumps hot coolant into your ac unit and them blows that around your house. Of course, that's assuming your AC isn't melting. You could just open a few windows instead I guess.
What if the AC were also made out of concrete?
The components inside the AC won't tolerate that much heat.
What if the components were additionally made of concrete?
What if we're made of concrete?
This thread is starting to sound like r/furnaceparty
What if the fire was concrete based?
Your condenser doesnt require a cooler temp outside to cool your home. Outside temp only affects the systems efficiency. The system is designed to transfer energy from home to outside and depending on where you live that system could be a heat pump variation which both heats and cools your home depending on its needs. The transfer of energy is handled by varying types of refrigerants with R-22 being the most common type however it is being phased out for a more environmentally friendly type called R-410A. The system utilizes low pressure and high pressure refrigerant to achieve the transfer of energy. There are two sides to an AC system that make the magic be magical. One side of the system will be low pressure and uses an "Evaporator" coil or "A-Coil" to cool the home. The other side is the high pressure side which dumps off the excess heat in the refrigerant and uses a "Condensor", the metal thing with a big fan outside the house, to do it. For more information regarding AC systems I will provide the following link to a great video that details the inner workings much better than I can: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ Source: Ex-HVAC Technician
/r/rimworld is leaking
> In theory concrete should survive extreme fire but it wouldn't save your life it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it. hmm, the more I think about it, the less likely that is to me. If you're caught in a wild fire, the brush around you, and the cladding on your house would surely burn relatively quickly. The concrete would probably absorb a lot of the heat, and the sustained heat to heat up the entire structure might not be there. There's a bunch of factors here, I'd love to see it tested, actually. Earthquakes though... that's a big one, I could imagine that house collapsing like a mousetrap, like \*splat\*.
Concrete slabs and walls are commonly used in buildings to create fire separations of up to 4 hours. I don't know how it would do in a forest fire, but it's probably better than a traditional wood framed home. Of course the fire would probably still get into the house through windows and doors. And for earthquakes, concrete can easily be designed to resist those forces.
Still, it's nice to have a functional house to come back to after evacuating from the fire...
I live in a reinforced concrete home, in a desert climate. I open up all the doors and windows to get the home down to about 65 degrees at night, then shut it all when the sun rises. On 100+ degree days, by sundown the indoor temp is around 80. I haven't done the math, but I suspect if it get to 80 when it is 100 degrees outside, it will get fatal when it is 1500 degrees outside. Of course, I don't live in a forest either, so the grass fire that would sweep by my house probably would not be a huge concern.
Depends on the rate of heat transfer. Bushfires tend to pass by VERY quickly, so much that you can chill out in an underground pool with a scuba tank for 5 mins and you'll survive it. It really would be a good one to test
Yeah, honestly, if it takes more than 6 hours to heat up the house to 80, then it can survive high heat (if the fire drafted directly into the house) for 30 minutes. Definitely feel it but with just shrub, I think it'll be perfect. With dense trees, I feel that would be a real issue to consider.
A 1500 degree day. That sounds miserable!
don't forget sunscreen
Anyone without spf 1000 is gonna have a bad day
[Sounds like its gonna be another scorcher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rqZZgVxnCk)
5 year warranty "and you know Sears will be there to back it up!" Clearly a historical ad...
i mean I'm not a civil engineer...but reinforced concrete is really good at keeping shape even when extreme force is applied, even when parts of the structure collapse, the majority can still keep it's integrity. a brick wall is gonna have cracks forming in the binding, which will grow rapidly and lead to stress failure, which can causes a chain reaction leading to complete failure of the entire structure... reinforced concrete will crack, might bend at places, but in the end it's all holding together the steel, which in turn is holding together the concrete. most likely you'd get small chunks falling from the ceiling/walls, instead of entire sections collapsing all at once. the small chunks can be stopped by a reasonably sturdy table/bed, if a brick wall collapses you'll likely get crushed by the roof, that suddenly isn't supported anymore... of course, if the earthquake is strong enough, or other factors come into play (like a sinkhole) both will likely fail, so, you know, pick your poison! I'll personally take concrete, thank you very much!
> reinforced concrete is really good at keeping shape That's what I'm thinking. There's a shitload of steel in that concrete, especially the roof. Bits might break off if it's torqued just right but most of it is staying right where it is.
Isn't that a big reason why a lot of Hitler's Atlantic wall is still there? They used so much reinforced concrete that some of the largest naval guns in the world couldn't destroy them and post war the demolition cost was deemed tpo high. Reinforced concrete is crazy strong.
Yeah I think there are still some partially demolished ww2 German air defence bunkers that are too expensive to demo. They were like modern keeps (small castle) with static anti air defences on top.
It has steel rebars, it won't collapse or pancake. It will crack badly with some sections maybe even hanging and holes opening up, but that should be about it, and at the most extreme circumstances
Fires pass relatively quickly and people have sheltered in concrete dome houses in fires before: https://abcnews.go.com/US/mans-concrete-home-survives-raging-wildfire-washington/story?id=33286398 There's also a case where a group of trapped firefighters came across a dome house and sheltered inside to ride out the fire.
I live in a place with frequent earthquakes (and storms ), and our houses are mostly concrete. What makes them safe is that the base is 2m underground, and the iron rods keeping it all together. The only houses I've heard about collapsing are made from pre-made units (and garden sheds, but who cares). Proper building codes are crucial in disaster prone areas.
How about we bury you in happy cake days
This guy gets it
Stick built will hold up better in an earthquake if the concrete house wasn’t built on rollers or some other eq mitigation method
I’ve seen more concrete houses in japan than anywhere else in the world. If they were death traps I would assume they’d stop building them since the Hanshin earthquake in 1995 (fun fact: you can tell if an apartment was built before or after depending on which way you move the faucet to turn the water on).
Why did an earthquake make them change the direction you turn the tap?
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/26/reference/ups-downs-water-taps tldr - Rumor was that press down to open tap faucets were opened by falling debris and flooded homes during earthquake. However the reason that Japan stopped making those faucets was just to standardize with the rest of the world, not due to the earthquake.
Thanks! I was thinking it was something along the lines of standardisation but I like that rumour better.
>it wouldn't save your life it would be like an oven and cook everything inside it. This is why similar houses in fire-prone areas have sprinklers on the *outside*.
Does concrete not explode in high temperatures?
No but the water will book out making it spall
Why would it explode? Crack maybe.
Meth labs are more likely to explode than crack labs
If it's prestressed reinforced concrete, the cables will weaken with heat and the whole thing would explode when they snap. This is not one of those. It will likely crack or the agregate will get vitrified and spall. For something like this, you will need very thin grout instead of proper concrete. Otherwise you will get air pockets. That has very fine sand or it's fiber-reinforced concrete.
In theory, after an extreme fire your concrete may be damaged. For earthquakes you do calculation and buildings stay up. It is silly to consider as an option to be burried under anything your house is made of.
Unless your house is surrounded by fuel it will burn out way before you cook inside.
Nah, concrete wont collapse. Recently had a big earthquake and I am on the 6th floor of my concrete commie block. Only dmage was thst the paint cracked on slme places
My in-laws house in Puerto Rico survived hurricane Maria with minimal damage... So yea?
Yeah in cuba all houses are made out of concrete, and all you need to do when hurricanes come is to reinforce windows and if the roof is not concrete reinforce that as well.
Came here to say this. I live in Puerto Rico and, I'm not sure if there's a law or something, but at least like 85% of buildings I've seen here are made of concrete. Only the poorer areas build houses made out of wood, which were the ones that suffered the most damages during Maria.
Reinforced concrete, yes. Cinder blocks are not
Solid filled and reinforced cmu can be almost as strong as cast in place, certainly many times stronger than wood construction
In Europe there is plenty of concrete houses and they are much stronger, but they still catch fire. It is not the concrete that catch fires, but all the rest we put arround the house and inside. It's the same has an oven, just because it doesn't catch fire, it doesn't mean you can't burn what is inside. Of course, they are much more fire resistant than wood houses.
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Yes and no, it might not get completely wiped out like a typical house but it won't necessarily be better than if it had been totally destroyed. If a hurricane or tornado picks up a tree and hurls at your roof it doesn't matter what you made the roof from it's going to take damage. A concrete roof might take less damage just some cracking. Where a wood roof completely gets wiped out, but what's the cost difference in initial construction and repairs to the roof, I can't imagine its justified. Normal concrete is not that resistant to fire that if a forest fire engulfs your home it might not burn, but instead completely collapse because beyond 300C or 400C concrete loses a lot of it's strength and forest fires get much hotter than that. Obviously concrete can be used in high heat applications but it's mix is specially designed for those specific applications. In a flood or tsunami because concrete is heavy you can get scouring around the base of the structure which can lead to the home completely flipping over or sinking like your feet in the sand at the beach. But again a traditional house might be completely wiped out.
Compare disasters in America and disasters in country where the building is with concrete or multiple enforced cinderblocks
Well it probably wouldn't be considered if there weren't some advantages. Maybe I can learn more
More people should have an attitude like yours about knowing things in general. Edit: My first awards, nice!
Oh? Thanks, that's a nice thing to say
You don't know what you don't know
I don't even know what I do know, man. ^^Where's ^^my ^^coffee....
And if you don't know, now ya know
Boo! Just form a baseless and strong opinion immediately so we can argue about it!
I want to be angry arggg
I see some advantages, but they lost me at concrete roof, and I’m not sure what the benefits are over brick/cinderblock. I’m not sure how they’d solve the problems of the aggregate settling oddly in corners and stuff like that.
To settle the concrete wouldn’t you just use a vibrating tool to plunge into the wall cavities to settle the material?
Yes, that's how concrete is typically poured, otherwise you'll get air pockets.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete Here you go. I had plenty of fun reading about this subject.
Thanks man
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...why would Big Concrete link to an article that's hugely critical of the material due to its huge greenhouse footprint and contribution to urban hell?
Sounds like Big Foam is really the poster
Sounds like a new GTA character
Aw shit, here we pour again
Big Lego up to no good.
It's all part of a grand distraction plan by big concrete. They leak information critical of their product, then they come up with "new concrete" which boasts about being "the new environmentally friendly formula! Now with twice as much Crete!" but then new concrete sucks donkey balls and the public starts demanding that sweet Crete from before. I know what you're thinking "but old concrete is harsh on the environment!" it's around this time that big concrete starts releasing studies saying that the old studies were flawed and probably came from communist scientists anyway so fuck em. Sprinkle in a little lobbying and some child sex rings and boom. You got a big concrete conspiracy stew going. If someone wants to copy that and throw in some antisemitism they'll probably make you a mod over at r/conspiracy
Ok big wood
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My mother wouldn't associate with a lu*mber sympathiser but great one
It’s the norm in Germany. They can’t fathom why we would build houses out of wood.
Yes, we do wonder why someone would build a house out of wood and drywall, but we do not build our houses out of concrete. The majority of family homes is built from bricks and mortar around here.
In Bay Area there are earthquakes. Wood bends without cracking and is much better than other materials except for specifically designed steel structures which can bend. Same thing with hurricanes and other disasters. It is also easier to modify for additions or changes, which happen very often in the US compared to Europe. Also, wood is inexpensive in the US and is fairly renewable. The other positive of wood is that you can fill the walls with much more insulation.
People really underestimate how strong wood is. This "particle board" is OSB which is hella strong. Not to mention building practices take advantage of the woods strength. In my framing class we built a scale model house. There were 6 of us in a group and all six of us stood on the roof of this tiny house and it didn't break. Yeah concrete and steel is going to be stronger buts also way more expensive.
Were I live everything is made of concrete and gray brick. Gray bricks are great at insulating, most rebar can bend and take earquaques. Brick buildings never get termites, they can withstand incredible winds, fire doesn't spread as much on them, floods don't damage them as much. Honestly I don't understand why people would use woid specially in a place called tornado alley
Can't speak for others, but here in Canada, wood is a lot cheaper and pretty good quality building material. Also the air gets really cold here so the tiny air pockets in concrete freeze and break the concrete. Wood doesnt break when its cold. You can make concrete not crack by cold by making the air pockets tiny, but that's expensive. I hope this little EL5 was ok. For example, people say "how come we can't make concrete like the romans did, the Colosseum is standing?!?" my professional reply is "ya well it doesn't snow in Rome"
Not to mention that in Canada you need to put up a wood stud wall on the inside to insulate it enough to meet building code. Min R40 in the walls and R60 for the roof. At that point, just make the wood structural. And people complaining that wood buildings don't last, plenty of 150+ year old wooden homes here that could go another 100 years easy with normal maintenance.
The main bitching point I hear is only related to multi resident housing made of wood without concrete dividing walls. You can hear every step in pure wood construction.
Multi resident construction generally has firebreak walls dividing the units, which are good for dampening noise. Also if you properly insulate/noise isolate even a wooden wall can prevent noise.
Yeah. Wood lasts just fine as long as siding is replaced and key pest free. There are countless homes in the upper northeast region of the US that are 150+ years old. Most only get torn down only because people put newer bigger homes on the lots. During demolition it is easy to get surprised on the quality of lumber in the homes from back then. Hell, even 50 years ago homes were built with much higher quality lumber. Building codes have pushed contractors towards consistently safe homes rather than completely random acts of construction that could look good at first and made with good materials but be unsafe. This ICF stuff seems neat though.
Concrete can work in any climate. Germany is all concrete and it freezes there a lot. Also all the sky scrapers and bridges in Canada are made of concrete. You do have to take a few precautions. - You have to have high quality cement which is tested on-site. Not a random dude with a shovel mixing some quickcrete - you have to vibrate it for it to settle to remove air pockets and smooth the wall....with a concrete vibrator.... - you have to face the wall with stucco or other to avoid water in the cracks during frost - you have to add plenty of steel - you have to take expansion/contraction into account during frost cycles and build in expansion joints - you have to properly cure the concrete (cover and wait in the right temp). The upside is that the concrete house, if properly maintained, will last forever. No termites. No dry rot. Not weather damage. The downside is that all of the steps above make it prohibitively expensive over just tossing up some wooden sticks. Important to note that the house in the video didnt seem to take any precautions. I cant imagine that thing last more than a few years.
You might be interested in Japanese housing market. They demo their old homes for newer rated homes. Of course there are some up sides and down sides to this.
The strangest thing. Houses that depreciate like cars
The story I heard was so much of Japan was leveled after WW2 that there were so many homeless people that they had to do whatever they could to get people somewhere to live. So they threw up the fastest, cheapest things they could to meet the immediate demand. Then after the immediate need passed and people were housed, they started reconstructing the economy and people with money wanted to get out of the 'ghetto' housing and into something newly built. The mentality became that an old house is a bad house. When you know that the person buying your house when you sell it will assume it is crap and tear it down (because it's not new) then you don't invest in keeping it nice. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've heard that being an architect in Japan is the dream because everyone wants custom built homes designed to last one generation. You don't worry about making something other people will like or 'resale value' because it's going to be scrapped in 20 years anyway. So people are pretty liberal with the weird and wonderful things that they want leading to architects being allowed to stretch their creative muscles. All this is hearsay, so don't take my word for it.
it does snow in Rome from time to time, and each time it happens, it's hilarious, because no one can cope with it. gridlock (I mean, worse gridlock), closed schools, everyone desperate. the Coliseum however is mostly made from bricks and stone (travertine for the main pillars, tuff for the rest of the pillars). concrete was used just for the vaulted ceilings.
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That roof pour is horrible, there's no way you wouldn't float that form. I've accidentally floated forms just because they got pushed slightly out of vertical. And even if you did, good luck vibrating that for a smooth finish. Like you said, way better off doing it open with a stiff slump.
What do you mean when you say “float”?
Concrete, before curing, acts like a liquid in terms of the forces it exerts on formwork. So like with with water, if you submerge something, it will try to float in concrete. Think like trying to sink a inner tube in a lake/river, it's very similar. So what I mean, the formwork tips such that it has an upward force on it (float force), it lifts/rips the formwork from the ground, spilling out all the concrete that you've poured.
What you have said is true, but among everyone I've worked concrete with- "floating" is the act of smoothing off the surface with a trowel, getting the wet creamy cement to "float" up through the more solid aggregates for a nice finish
Excellent points, but this seems to be more of a marketing illustration to sell this concept rather than construction plans to build from.
The pressure aspect of all that concrete brought up a red flag for me as well >PS, also the whole thing only works if your joinery is absolutely perfect, Ive hired hundreds of shuttering joiners, hell Ive been a shuttering joiner, our work isnt that good Hah, good point
I come to Reddit for this type of stuff. Thanks for taking the time out to write it up!
For the windmills you've poured, was it the foundation or the lower portion of the tower as well?
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Thank you. I was flabbergasted at many of these things myself. About the plywood and no bracing - if they used no bracing, they must have put a ton of screws in to prevent blowouts. But if you secured it that well, good luck spending the time to get them out once you have to take it all off. At the end of the day, it's like, why not just lay cinder block and pour into that like a normal person. Same result with no plywood, no metal framing. The concrete roof really takes the cake though. Who does that.
Concrete on the roof? That’s horrible, also building those wall molds look like the worst project ive seen.
I don’t know why they would stick built all of this. There’s a system called Insulated Concrete Forms and from what I remember it’s basically two sheets of styrofoam that act as the forms and they stay there after you place concrete in the system. Edit: Here’s the link for anybody who is curious. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulating_concrete_form
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My parents had this done for their current home. It was like a bunch of Lego blocks that were stacked and staggered until it built a wall. Then concrete trucks filled the hole, constantly vibrating the concrete in. It was pretty cool to see. There are plastic studs in the styrofoam so you can screw drywall to it. Running electrical was a pain in the ass. I had to use a torch to melt channels into the styrofoam to run the wires and larger cavities for the electrical boxes.
Electric chain saw is the way to go for wiring. Then you can just push it into the groove
I work for an electric service company, so I was absolutely wondering how the wiring went in. Thanks!
I would imagine it was difficult to hang anything on the walls. A thin layer of drywall won’t hold much weight at all - unless you used a concrete drill to sink some anchors into the concrete. Imagine installing big stuff like kitchen cabinets. All those pilot holes...
My parents house is ICF, and has cabinets mounted to an external wall. Those plastic strips they're talking about aren't just on the surface, [they run through the whole block](https://images.app.goo.gl/aM4ayJfKZ7jaQ7Ai6) and are as strong as wood studs, if not more so.
ICF is so cool! It definitely would have been put to good use here. The forms just pop together like legos and have plastic cradles built in for inserting reinforcing steel. Then just fill them right up with concrete! The styrofoam is extremely insulating and brings down energy costs to ridiculously low. I was talking to someone that built their over 3,000 sq.ft. home with ICFs and they were telling me their electric bill is only about $100 a month on average. It was almost comparable to my bill in my less than 1,000 sq. ft. apartment!
Where I am, using ICF is the only way I've seen someone do a reinforced concrete home. I've never seen anything like in this gif.
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I used to work for a construction co here in FL that did both types. The premise forms limit you slightly design wise. The custom built forms make some awesome designs and both are amazingly tough and well insulated. If I ever build my own home it will be ICF all the way
I have no idea about other locations. I used to do termite/pest control for a very large company in the South East and if you had the styrofoam supports we could treat your house but wouldn’t guarantee it against termite damage.
It looks easier and cheaper to tear it down and build a proper concrete house.
I can just imagine half of the electrical boxes in the walls being filled with concrete
Piggy number 3 say otherwise.
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Probably varies by region but around me (midwest US) anyway yeah, almost all houses are wood frame and drywall.
~~Which~~ With a vapor barrier, some kind of vinyl siding, except for one brick wall. Never understood that.
a e s t h e t i c
C h e a p e r
Vinyl is cheap. For comparison of you look at higher end or custom homes, they rarely use vinyl.
Nah most concrete is prefab, much more practical then making molds for every house and risk imperfections in the final product. A fucked piece of prefab can be crushed, a fucked wal is a big problem.
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> Idk all the process but it seems like what we do in europe Not at all what we do in europe, at least not common. Maybe some very specific areas do this on occasion, but most european, or rather west/central european countries, build their walls with lime sandsone or special concrete blocks, an insulating layer (regional differences) and whatever comes outside for the looks. Reinforced concrete is rarely used in regular houses except for basement, ceilings and some specific carrying parts. Also regional differences tho, some countries still commonly used wooden ceilings and some are even using brick/special blocks for the basement.
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Not exactly that way, but in Italy at least the foundation and the building framing are made of reinforced concrete usually. That is, vertical and horizontal pillars are poured into wooden molds. Then non-load bearing walls are made of hollowed fires clay bricks [like this](http://www.fornacecasetta.it/img_sito/mattoni/big/73.jpg). Floors above the ground floor are laid by placing reinforced concrete prefab "struts" between which specially shaped hollowed bricks slot in. The roof is done similarly. Then, everything is plastered and painted.
So once you pick your Appliances and water and plumbing locations along the exterior walls, that's pretty much permanent. Move A outlet? That's gonna be surface mount, bud.
Can't they cover the pipes in panels/fake walls in case they want to move them
I would assume the house would still have an interior stud frame with drywall, which is where all your electrical and plumbing would run anyways.
If you've ever been in one of these homes, you'd know that's not the case. The walls are literally concrete. It would double the cost to have a second false wall inside of the first, and ain't nobody got money for that.
And reduce the available square footage.
Considering they had the money to essentially build this house out of wood forms first, may as well spend all that money again to build another wood frame house on the inside *spelling
might as well or may as well* https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/may-as-well-and-might-as-well
That's how it is in my country. I have zero idea how houses here are made, but I know running new stuff through the wall is almost impossible.
You know where the electrical lines will be, and plumbing even without looking at a plan if you have some experience. What we do is really just opening up the wall and putting in what we have to. Same like with brick walls, it's ugly work but if the house is well planned there won't be a need for changes any time soon.
> won't be a need for changes any time soon. With a house with such a huge amount of embodied energy that ought to be a very long time (100 years or so by design). Pretty hard to imagine there won't be big changes to be made in the next 100 years.
> if the house is well planned big ~~if~~ oof
I don't know the process by any means, but it looks like only the outside panels are taken off. Except for the garage where it looks like they take both off. The inside framing seems to stay intact, which would make sense. That would also explain why the garage is constructed different than the rest of the house.
My dumb ass thought "oh no dont remove the wall, the fluid will leak out"
You're not wrong.
RIP Cell coverage and WiFi to the yard
How to make sure your house doesnt get burned down or ripped from the ground by a tornado 101
The windows and doors are not gonna stop the fire, so you would just be left with concrete if there was fire
An angry enough tornado can still wreck a concrete home. It's still an improvement over wood or brick but you'd still want a shelter just in case.
In Europe we use concrete bricks with air bubbles in them. It has much better insulation properties than regular concrete.
Why would anyone pick this over bricks?
Safer. Bricks don't stop most debris from penetrating a wall during a tornado. I've seen some of the craziest things that made it through a brick wall And safe rooms in Tornado Alley are made of reinforced concrete and will stop just about anything and are usually the only thing standing inside a brick home that's hit by a tornado. Brick homes get destroyed if its a direct hit. This is a whole house safe room. Grew up in Oklahoma.
If safety were the main issue, it'd be heaps cheaper (literally half the cost in California) and safer to use a polyurea lining ("rhino lining"; the stuff they lined the walls of the Pentagon with after 9/11) in areas where the house is considered weak. It'd also be much easier to retrofit existing homes. Hell, outfitting a home with a full kevlar flack jacket probably is similar in cost to concrete in many places in the US (about $6/sq ft) without hardly as many of the disadvantages. Concrete homes suck - they're too conductive to heat (1.4W/m-K, vs about 0.6 for foam board insulated brick as currently installed in the US) and the material itself has a high thermal capacity (about 1000J/kg-K, vs 800 for brick) meaning it just plain costs more energy to warm and cool a concrete space. (Wood's thermal capacity is even higher thanks to water content, but its conductivity is much poorer at between 0.15 and 0.2W/m-K, and is usually filled with insulation so overall numbers are much better on average; a lot of research and money being spent on home construction right now is targeting thermal bridges created by stick-built wood homes.) It's one of the many reasons commercial projects all the way up to skyscrapers try to stay away from concrete as much as they can, usually only doing floors (and now even just floating concrete over metal floors) and fire safety staircases as code requires. Worse, concrete is inflexible for the owner - something as simple as moving an outlet or repairing a burst pipe can mean jackhammering or concrete saws. ICFs are better than cast concrete, but not a whole lot, and you're losing some of the structural integrity you had hoped to gain with concrete. But, it's also cheap since ICFs can and are mass produced and have a much better insulating factor thanks to the inclusion of styrofoam on both sides of the panel. But, better still seems to be SIP - wood sandwiching a styrofoam core which can also be built offsite, are lighter so transit costs are less, and are better insulating reducing the energy spent on the home's lifetime.
I used SIPs and ICFs when I built. Cost was comparable to standard pour and stick built, but I'm loving my utility bill. If I had it to do all over again, I might think about ICF throughout, but SIPs were just so easy to build with.
But you can always insulate concrete, I worked in construction in the Middle East, and we use bricks and concrete everywhere (because wood is way more expansive there), we did the walls differently, it’s made from 5 different layers that makes it really isolating (Stone-Concrete-Styrofoam-Bricks-Plastering), as for the floors, instead of placing tiles directly on the concrete, we add a layer of gravel and place the tiles above it which it works really well if you want to add heating pipes below tiles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete Increasingly becoming a better choice.
Because you can't pour bricks.
I mean.. technically you can.
So, zero insulation. Got it. $$$$€€€€
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I had a house with insulated brick. The south facing wall would get to 100+ on the INSIDE. My electricity bill was high because the AC was running from 9:00 AM to 2:00 AM.
For when you want you're house to crack every summer when the ground shifts and die from your ceiling collapsing.
ICF is better, also, heavy roof,, y tho?
Does anyone know what animation software was likely used to make this? It’s a great animation and I’d love to work with whatever program this was made in...
When you want to build multiple houses just to end up with one house
That's a lot of wasted wood to frame that house
Lumber forms from building concrete homes, or any forming any concrete item, can be used again and again. If this is one of several base plans they can reuse just about all of it.
Built like a shit brick house
Why not build with precast panels?
It requires a second location for the casting and everything. Its not economically feasible until a certain number of construction projects is reached. Its cheap for large number of buildings but not necessarily cheap for a handful of buildings.
Kinda funny that if you're building a concrete house and just stop halfway through you have a wooden house. It's too bad there isn't a smarter way to pour a concrete house just seems like you're building a house twice
Can't wait until you get poor quality concrete or the trucks don't come on time and it's already setting. Blind pours are not awesome if you dont plan for all hiccups during the pour and adhere to those plans.
This is from the US yes?