[Strawbale] Tyre foundation

[RT]

On Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:57:44 -0500, Jure Požar <jure.pozar at gmail...>  
wrote:

> I am planning to do a 2 rows of residue tyre foundation for my house,

> Are there any test done so far on what is the lifetime of such  
> foundation ?

> I am planning to make a first row of tyres into the ground and the  
> second above ground.
> Shall the tyres be filled with a gravel?


Jure;

As with tyres that are mounted onto an automobile, the tyres themselves  
have very little load-bearing capacity.

If you have any doubts about that statement, go outside, let all the air  
out of your bicycle tyres, hop onto the bike and then try and go for a 40  
km ride.

I would wager that you wouldn't get further than 4 metres.

Well, actually you might but it wouldn't be the tyres that were providing  
the load support.

As you will have surmised from the above example, the tyres are merely a  
receptacle to contain the unconsolidated material that provides the load  
bearing capacity.

In the case of a bicycle, that unconsolidated material is compressed air.

While one certainly could also theoretically use compressed air in a tyre  
foundation, the more common fill is compressed (compacted) earth.

Gravel or stone or broken concrete or broken glass or gold bullion etc or  
any combination of, would be suitable fill material as well.  Obviously  
the choice of which materials one might use would be determined by the  
site's soil conditions and locally-available materials.

In my neighbourhood, there are many places where there is very little or  
no soil overburden on top of the bedrock.

Some farmers would use a salvaged tyre as a stay-in-place form into which  
they would place concrete and then plant a fencepost into the wet concrete  
(as an alternative to trying to dig a post hole into solid rock).

How long would a properly-constructed tyre foundation last ? How long do  
tyres last in a landfill ?
(The variable is not the longevity of the tyres but rather it is the  
manner in which the foundation was constructed.)



-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
<ArchiLogic at ChaffYahoo dot Ca>
( manually winnow the chaff from my edress in your reply )
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