Lego style house - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

davidmash · #1 01-01-2021, 04:26 PM

The R-value on this house must be pretty insane.

https://youtu.be/MIKJG-iMKwY

I like the fact that it seems very quick to build, seems like it would be pretty sturdy.

I would do it if it met building code here.

speednjay · #2 01-01-2021, 05:14 PM

Seems like framing a house woukd still be a lot faster. I wonder how they do the electric and plumbing

davidmash · #3 01-02-2021, 08:32 PM

I would think electrical and plumbing could be done by drilling holes down and running the line. I am a big fan of the insulative value of the walls.

barry12345 · #4 01-02-2021, 11:09 PM

All the interior seems to be strapped. Leaving space for most wiring and plumbing supply iines. The strapping also holds the top row of building blocks that anchor the roof.

Possibile code violations. Did not see the first row of blocks anchored to the slab. May have just missed it. It is convention to use various particle and chipboard products in our region. I really never have liked them.

They are used of course because of them being economical. I dislike them so much. I will not even use them on a storage shed.Or for bases of kitchen cupboards. Any water ingress can spell a major issue.

Any plywood sold in Canada 1/4 inch thick or greater. Must incorporate waterproof glue. Douglas fir plywood is highly rot resistant and very strong.

t walgamuth · #5 01-03-2021, 01:28 PM

I still prefer plywood too.

Autoputzer · #6 01-07-2021, 08:19 AM

That's somewhere in Europe.

When I was in college in the 1980's, I worked for Kelly Industrial Temporary Labor. One of the places they sent me was a company that made pre-fab houses out of 4' x 8' wall sections made form aluminum and rigid foam. They had conduit for electrical wiring installed before the foam was poured in. The company was sending shipping containers of these things to Germany, to be used in the construction of US military housing.

I read an article 20+ years ago about a house in Canada that was so energy efficient that it didn't require a heating plant other than a small wood stove. Appliances and lighting provided most of heat. The walls were ~12" thick, and there were airlocks, sally ports, or whatever you want to call them for the doors going outside. All the windows were Ag-filled triple-pane glass.
The house was so airtight that outside air had to be pumped into the house, but it passed through a giant air-to-air heat exchanger first.

Wall thickness is like MPG, the more you have the less adding more accomplishes. For vehicles driven 10k mile/year, going from 10 MPG to 20 MPG saves 500 gallons of fuel/year. But, going from 40 MPG to 50 MPG only saves 50 gallons of fuel/year. Going from 3.5" to 5.5" of wall insulation does a lot more than going from 5.5" to 7.5".

Our new house will have room in the basement for one of those giant air-to-air heat exchangers.

Windows are the big source of heat loss/gain. I'll probably bite the bullet and get triple-pane windows.

Windows have multiple purposes: natural lighting and providing views of the surroundings. But, they also have an aesthetic purpose, "curb appeal." Five rooms in our new house will be on the front of house: bedroom, office, laundry room, bathroom, and a walk-in closet. Big windows have little functional value in a laundry room, bathroom, or closet. So, those windows will be in a "bump" with at least 1' on either side of the window trim, covered with a contrasting material (shakes vs. lapboard on the exterior walls). That will sufficiently fill up the exterior walls with "visual interest" while minimizing the window area.

A lot of new houses here in Floriduh are made of concrete poured into rigid. hollow foam forms with re-bar. The re-bar is short pieces, threaded on the ends. With a knuckle, they build up the re-bar as as they stack up the foam form blocks.

I rented a house with OSB sheathing. There were ripples in the roof.