C. Letellier

Brody Ekberg wrote:

C. Letellier wrote:What ever siding you choose suggest study perfect wall style construction.  Rain screen, air gap to breath and dry, insulation, air barrier, wall with insulation.

Good idea. Walls are 2x4 studs and are insulated already. Tar paper on the outside and then aluminum siding. Im tearing off the tar paper either way to inspect the entire envelope of the house and then putting up a new house wrap regardless of what siding we choose.

My dad added foam sheets of insulation when he resided his house and is trying to convince me to do the same. I dont want to though. Our little wood stove and boiler system heat the house fine as is, we have new windows, i hate the idea of spending thousands on styrofoam and creating unimaginable amounts of plastic dust cutting all of it to size.

2 comments here.

1.  Why huge amounts of dust cutting to size??  I built a hot wire foam cutter that makes no dust and for longer cuts is just as fast.  It is 3 8 ft long 1"x2" furring strips(used 4 getting around knots), about 10 feet of baling wire, about 15 feet of light rope, (2) 1/4" bolts long enough to go thru 3 layers of furring strip and put a nut on and 2 wood screws.  And it is driven by the big battery charger.  No great expense, fairly fast, clean to operate and withing the skills set of anyone who will likely be working on a home to build.  Bit slow to warm up for first cut.  The wire draws 50 to 60 amps from the charger so big charger needed is the only real down side.  But no fancy nichrome wire.  Simple baling wire is working for me.  Looks like a giant bow saw.  Add some guide blocks(built out of scrap lumber at either end for the wire to track down.  Super straight clean cuts are possible.  Redesign the blocks and even compound miters are easy.

2.  How about changing the insulation?  What about rock wool instead of foam between the wall and the siding?  That is the answer many of the Canadian builders are doing following perfect wall design.  Very fire resistant, easily drying, doesn't support mold grow and a host of other advantage.  And by making it thick enough they are even eliminating vapor barriers in the wall by moving the dew point out into the rock wool so if any condensation forms it is out where it will not hurt anything meaning the walls dry better.  So if your siding is fire resistant and behind that you have the air gap and a very fire resistant insulation the wall should be very durable that way.  Now the one thing that concerns me there is the batten boards that hold the exterior insulation on the building and provide the air gap out to the siding, acting to mount the siding, as rain screen.  But what if they were made out of black locust.(one of the most fire and rot resistant woods grown in north America)  Borate treat it to provide added fire protection and termite protection.  Would that be enough?  If not, what about painting those boards with an intumescent paint?  This is one I am still researching trying to understand.

r ranson wrote:...

And it ended up that no one with the skillset seemed willing to write the book I needed.  So I had to do it.

And I discovered my problem was school.  I was trained to seek the one correct answer because in exams, there is only one.  Life isn't that way, and it was the "here is what I did" that were way more useful than the "do it this way".


Every few months I see workshops or a help me build, etc for rocket mass heaters.  I wonder if it would take a novice to write that book you seek.  Or someone starting out, and remembering what they are looking for in a book.  Attend some classes. Volunteer to help with builds.  Experiment.  Then maybe once you get to that level of dangerous knowledge where you enough to be confident,  but not so much to lose courage,  write the first draft, then team up with an expert to edit in the missing bits?  There are some amazing experts here.

This is so important in thinking about writing "THE" book on the subject.  The technology is evolving so rapidly that design changes mean the book would soon be outdated.  If you look at masonry heaters for example they have been around for many hundreds of years yet so they are a more evolved technology yet finding a truly comprehensive book for the DYIer on doing them in all instances is difficult.  It may be there in another language but as best I can tell it is not there in english.

The other problem is that location and needs are different in each location.   So it would be hard to come up with a single recipe that would work in a majority of locations.  At best likely all you can do is a set of 8 or 10 recipes with rules for modification to meet local needs.

What ever siding you choose suggest study perfect wall style construction.  Rain screen, air gap to breath and dry, insulation, air barrier, wall with insulation.

Collector half posted above.  Here is the more recent write up on the interior circulation added last spring.

interior circulation.

There is so much missing in this discussion it isn't even funny.

1.  corrosion inhibitors and cement coatings to prevent backing out.
2.  structural screws:  screws that bend rather than breaking.  They can be used in places where nails are normally required
3.  screws that are designed to be driven by nail guns.  2 types  One drives flush right off.  Second drives most of the way and is then screwed the rest of the way home
4. types of screws

The screw in the picture basically should never be used anywhere but its intended purpose.  It is a drywall screw.  They are brittle, weak and corrode off at the drop of a hat.

For most stuff I prefer outdoor rated screw with Torx drive.  Bigger screws I want impact type drivers rather than screw guns  Self drilling with the reverse twist section to prevent them from backing out.  Now if you are in hard woods you will find you often need to predrill to prevent splitting.  Some of the time you can prevent the need for this by running the screw in reverse till it gets hot while it makes a bit of a pilot hole.  Then if reverse so you screw it home while the tip is still hot it doesn't split.

Unless you are getting structural rated screws all framing and load bearing projects should be nailed.  Personally for framing my preferred answer is 2 20 box nails with a screw in them too.  Strutural rated screws are pricey costing 3X to 10X more than normal screws.

Here is a good beginning course on nails.

Nails

Now the price differential is coming down but nails are still cheaper and nearly everyone has a hammer.

Many of these are only a problem to get rid of in specific places.

If pigs will eat it and you do not mind turning the ground into to pavement fencing hogs on an area will destroy nearly all of them.  Won't work around bushes you want to keep though or small trees.   Quack grass and bind weed will fall before these.  Pigs are far better than goats for these because when something pokes its head up the pig roots down into the ground and destroys it below ground level.  Once the pigs have turned it into and earthen hard pack parking lot till the ground to get more seed to germinate and pig bomb it again.  Goats have their place in the control scheme too

Cheat grass can be controlled with livestock or proper mowing.

The ones that scare me are the ones that need hazmat gear to remove that will kill pigs and goats.

In a true car 1980 AMC eagle, heavy, full time 4 with automatic, nose lower.  Did have to run tire cables instead of chains because the wheel wells were to small slightly oversize tires we ran.

In the SUV type world my father's scout.  Early 70's  Solid transfer case, limited slip diffs and most importantly the right  gear in the back end.  When we unloaded it to sell following his death,  Tire chains plus full set of repair gear.(there were actually 6 sets of tire chains for the 4 wheels plus repair links and tools), Over 100 feet of chain, 2 come alongs, 2 handy man jacks, shovels, 70 feet of cable, 2 jerk type tow ropes, sand bags, salt bags, hundreds of feet of baling wire, then spare water pump, fuel pump, belts, upper and lower radiator hoses, radiator stop leak, hose clamps, fuel line, ignition module, plugs, wiper blades, a complete set of hand tools to use the spares.  Several gallons antifreeze, full oil change worth of engine oil, transmission oil etc

Some comments.  

My mother had a pair of loaf pans formed as a single  object that were unglazed clay.  If I understood what she taught they had been repeatedly oiled, sort of burned off and scrapped till the inside was the equivalent of the surface of seasoned cast iron.  The loaves usually released really easy from these.  Same basic rules as cast iron,  Never soak, no detergent and oil before putting away.  To use, heat, wipe the removable oil off and drop the loaves in.  She usually tried to rise the loaves so they had a bit of dry to the outside and flip them in so the drier side when against the pan.  The outside where not stained was light redish tan potter with no glaze and the inside was a warm sort of dark caramel brown from the treatment giving what I would guess you would call an oil glaze.  If ever thing worked right you simply let the pan cool a bit and flipped it and the loaf fell out.  Wipe down, oil and put away.

As for the water soaked unglazed pottery it was a roll pan I read about and it was supposed to produce really moist tender rolls.  Don't remember the procedure for it exactly but it was something like heat full of water, pour the water out and put back in heat till surface just barely looks dry and then put the rolls in.

As for pyrex breaking are you aware of the major difference between PYREX and Pyrex  The first with all caps is still borosilicate glass with the expected properties.  The other with small letters is standard flint glass.  Some of it might be treated.  But if you want the real thing you want all caps in the name.

If it toughens and increases reflection of heat back into the chimney as stated other than cost it looks like an ideal addition to RMH builds using the ceramic fiber insulation.

coating