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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@yahoo...>
To: GSBN@sustainablesources...
Cc: EuroSB <strawbale@amper....muni.cz>
Subject: Re: [Strawbale] Indoor Air Quality study
Message-ID: <op.v4xbl2zw0ciq73@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@sustainablesources...
>
wrote:
From: Pete Walker <P.Walker@...
To: Global Straw Bale Network <gsbn@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@gmail...>
To: European strawbale building discussions
<strawbale@amper....muni.cz>
Subject: Re: [Strawbale] Fire tests 2011 - valid for the whole EU
Message-ID:
<CAMOyiMAouKwiy_q2tqOQ1kzTENY41AXMUuc_j4CQhp3XhCPD5w@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@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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