[Strawbale] Strawbale Digest, Vol 72, Issue 9
Rikki Nitzkin
rikkinitzkin at earthlink...
Mon Nov 14 12:18:05 CET 2011
I don't know about Portugal, but here in Spain the architectural
college has accepted the German fire test (with an oficial
translation)...
abrazos,
Rikki
El 14/11/2011, a las 12:00, strawbale-request at amper....muni.cz
escribió:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Indoor Air Quality study (RT)
> 2. Re: Fire tests 2011 - valid for the whole EU (catarina pinto)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 01:43:04 -0500
> From: RT <archilogic at yahoo...>
> To: GSBN at sustainablesources...
> Cc: EuroSB <strawbale at amper....muni.cz>
> Subject: Re: [Strawbale] Indoor Air Quality study
> Message-ID: <op.v4xbl2zw0ciq73 at rt-acernb>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15; format=flowed;
> delsp=yes
>
> On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:58:31 -0500, <GSBN-request at sustainablesources...
> >
> wrote:
>> From: Pete Walker <P.Walker at ...
>> To: Global Straw Bale Network <gsbn at greenbuilder...>
>> Subject: [GSBN] Indoor Air Quality study
>>
>> I am supervising a Master students at the University of Bath
>> looking at
>> indoor air quality of straw bale buildings, in particular fungal
>> spore
>> counts. The idea for the project stemmed initially from what i
>> believe
>> are largely spurious stories that this is a potential health
>> problem for
>> building users. To date we have taken measurements in one straw bale
>> building that showed the fungal spore count was in fact higher than
>> the
>> control conditions, but well below WHO limits.
>>
>> Is anyone aware of similar studies having been completed?
>>
>> UK GSBN subscribers: we are looking for straw bale buildings to
>> sample.
>> Volunteers please.
>
> Peter;
>
> I found your incredulity (re: " largely spurious stories that this
> is a
> potential health problem") to be curious given that:
>
> (i) in-wall moisture sensors in monitored SB buildings have shown
> that
> the
> elevated moisture levels necessary to support deleterious microbial
> activity do in fact occur frequently and
>
> (ii) air-tight construction to prevent moisture intrusion (piggy-
> backed
> on air leakage)
> into the envelope materials and escape of mould spores from wetted
> envelope materials into
> the indoor air environment is the result of a conscious
> effort/implementation of
> meticulous detailing (rather than something that just happens as a
> result
> of good intentions) and
>
> (iii) given the rainy reputation of the UK and the large numbers of
> SB
> buildings whose exterior
> plaster is not protected from rain-wetting by a rainscreen
> cladding one
> would suspect that the
> drying regime does not exceed the wetting regime
>
> ... much more that would easily dispel any incredulity on my part.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, the SB-friendly, bona fide IAQ expert at CMHC (Don
> Fugler)
> retired last year so is no longer available to the SB community at the
> click of a mouse so I'll have to try and stumble through this .
>
> Rather than asking for volunteer subjects, I'd venture that it might
> be
> more effective to have someone who is experienced at spotting
> potential
> moisture problems in buildings, spend a week or so touring around the
> isle (or maybe via Google satellite imagery) to have a cursory look
> at as
> many SB buildings as possible in order to identify the ones that are
> likely candidates for a closer look.
>
> The next step might be to contact the owners of the first cull and
> seek
> permission to inspect their building to look for clues indicating that
> microbial activity within the envelope materials is getting into the
> indoor air environment. (ie discolouration (ie mould spore flumes)
> of the
> finishes in the vicinity of discontinuities in the air barrier (ie
> plaster
> cracks, joints between dissimilar materials/components/planes etc)
> etc ...
> and then monitor the IAQ of the worst of that bunch only. (ie no point
> wasting time/resources monitoring obviously healthy buildings)
>
> Stephen Collette (see below) has offered his assistance.
>
> ============== forwarded material =====================
>> On 2011-11-13, at 9:35 PM, Stephen Collette wrote:
> [snipped & pasted]
>>>
>>> Thank you very much for thinking of me with respect to this
>>> research. I
>>> sincerely appreciate you forwarding me the post.
>>>
>>> I am always interested in research such as this. Please forward my
>>> contact information to these folks and let them know that I am a
>>> former
>>> straw bale builder and now do air quality inspections full time, and
>>> that I think I could help them out in some way.
>>>
>>> Respectfully,
>>>
>>> Stephen
>>>
>>> Stephen Collette BBEC, LEED AP, BSSO
>>> Your Healthy House - Indoor Environmental Testing & Building
>>> Consulting
>>> http://www.yourhealthyhouse.ca
>
> ================ End of forwarded material ===========
>
> (This message has been copied to the Euro SB List with an eye to
> expanding
> the field of exploration beyond the very limited GSBN List membership.
> More is better in this instance. )
>
>
> --
> === * ===
> Rob Tom
> Kanata, Ontario, Canada
>
> < A r c h i L o g i c at Y a h o o dot c a >
> (manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:04:11 +0000
> From: catarina pinto <catarinarpinto at gmail...>
> To: European strawbale building discussions
> <strawbale at amper....muni.cz>
> Subject: Re: [Strawbale] Fire tests 2011 - valid for the whole EU
> Message-ID:
> <CAMOyiMAouKwiy_q2tqOQ1kzTENY41AXMUuc_j4CQhp3XhCPD5w at mail....com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-2"
>
> Hi,
>
> Thanks to Czech team for the tests and sharing them.
>
> I would like to know more about using this test as EU legislation. I
> am a
> Portuguese architect and here we don?t have specific legislation.
> Our civil
> engineer laboratory, wich regulates building materials in Portugal,
> doesn?t
> list strawbales as a building material, they don?t say nothing about
> it.
> So my question is if with this legislation I can legally work with
> strawbale as a building material in Portugal? What should I argument
> and
> report in the project documentation? Attach this documents, and
> others with
> more tests?
> What is the best proceedure, in this case?
>
> Thanks!
> Best Regards,
> Catarina Pinto
>
>
>
>
>
> 2011/11/12 Jan Hollan <jhollan at amper....muni.cz>
>
>> A successful Czech (hence, EU) test of fire resistance of a plastered
>> strawbale wall has been done in June. Now the official protocols are
>> available, too.
>>
>> As Jan R??i?ka announced on the ESBG in Bouzov already, a specimen
>> of a
>> loadbearing strawbale wall, a 3 m square 0.58 m thick has been
>> subjected to
>> a standard fire test in June 2011. The inner (heated) side has been
>> earth-plastered (5 cm), the outer side had a lime plaster (3 cm).
>> Bales had
>> 77 kg/m3 originally and 93 kg/m3 when fixed in the specimen.
>> During the
>> test, the load on the specimen had been 12 kN/m (so, like 360 kg on
>> the
>> whole specimen). The wall had endured for 144 min, test was stopped
>> then
>> due to the vertical deformation exceeding the allowed limit (this
>> happend
>> shortly after a large part of the earth plaster fell down).
>>
>> Another pair of specimens has been tested as well, one of them using
>> strawbales as insulation (41 cm thick) in a wooden construction,
>> earth
>> plastered, loaded by 20 kN/m. This test had to be finished after 69
>> min due
>> to a failure of the other specimen; the strawbale-filled one remained
>> almost intact. So it had been declared to comply with requirements
>> for at
>> least 60 min.
>>
>> For a longer text on the issue, with some images and
>> with all needed URLs, including those to the protocols, see
>> http://amper.ped.muni.cz/**jenik/straw/tests/**FiretestStrawCZ.pdf<http://amper.ped.muni.cz/jenik/straw/tests/FiretestStrawCZ.pdf
>> >
>>
>> So, walls of such constructions, if not subject to larger loads
>> than the
>> tested ones, can be used in EU without any fire-related legal
>> obstacles now!
>>
>> with best regards,
>> Jenik
>>
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>
>
> --
> CATARINA PINTO
> ARQUITECTA
> www.terrapalha.blogspot.com
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