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GBlist: Strawbale Moisture Failures



on Thu, 15 May 1997 
bhoward2@sprynet.com (Bion Howard) wrote:
Re: Strawbale Moisture Failures

>    ...it is time to organize to get some funding for a building science
>    study of moisture in strawbale housing walls. Anybody got any funding
>    ideas, or even better -- work in progress -- so we don't wind up
>    reinventing the wheel?


[ tap... tap...tap ]  Is this thing ON ???

Hello Usually Dour Bion Howard and GBers;

As was mentioned to the GB List earlier in the week, there is currently an
intiative encouraging SB homeowners to monitor the moisture in their own
walls. Perhaps I wasn't ranting loud enough or obnoxiously enough to be
heard. Sorry eh ? 

Or, perhaps I didn't make it clear that although the evaluation study was
funded by CMHC here in Canada,  the report is available to anyone on this
planet, free for the asking....and that hopefully, the data accumulated
from the Homeowner Moisture Monitoring Initiative (HMMI) will come from
international sources as well.

Since SB construction in its current form is not patentable, there are very
few organisations, if any, in the private sector who would have anything to
gain by funding SB research, it was recognised that such funding would not
be forthcoming in the immediate future and that the means to carry out this
much-needed research would have to come from within the SB community
itself.

However, SB homes are being built NOW, in wide-ranging climatic conditions
which are very different than that which SB construction was born in...and
largely by people with very little building science background. I don't
think I need to point out the potential perils involved.

It was also recognised that most people currently building SB homes are
doing so because they are seeking economical shelter and as such, are
typically of limited financial means. It was in this regard that the
evaluation study sought to recommend reliable and accurate systems which
would enable a number of sensor locations in each house to be monitored for
a total cost of less than two hundred dollars.

As you can appreciate, a large-scale, long-term study such as this HMMI
hopes to accomplish, would be prohibitively expensive to attempt via normal
routes and would probably not happen until such a time as pigs learn to
fly.

                                   *

Although it was also mentioned in the earlier post that CMHC-funded blower
door tests /moisture sensor implants are currently being carried out on
some Nova Scotia SB, I didn't mention that  an unoffical blower door test
on an existing SB home was carried out earlier this year by the research
contractor.

I'm afraid I don't recall the exact ELA numbers, but the results were
within the realm of R-2000 standards (once some leakage through some
ceiling light fixtures was sealed up).

What I didn't mention was that Shawna will also be taking some samples to
determine the presence of any microbial growths; stachybotrys atra in
particular.
                              *

To request a copy of the CMHC SB Moisture Sensor Study ...or to find out
how many people (and from where) have already requested it and have
committed to participating in the HMMI... or to learn of the current status
of the CMHC-funded studies of existing SB contact: 

          Don Fugler < dfugler@cmhc-schl.gc.ca >


( But you didn't hear any of this from me. Okay ?)










--
Rob  Tom
---------- * ------------
be417@FreeNet.Carleton.ca
Kanata,  Ontario,  Canada

--
Rob  Tom
---------- * ------------
be417@FreeNet.Carleton.ca
Kanata,  Ontario,  Canada

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