I looked on their web site about costs and found only passing references to it being more cost effective.
I do like the idea and think its pretty innovative but as with all things the devil is in the detail.
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What I like, from a conceptual standpoint, is that it take material that would normally be added to land fills and turns it into material that can be used to construct homes.
BTW - people talk about “unskilled labor” used to complete constructions. But I doubt if that includes electricians, plumbers, HVAC, finish carpentry, etc.
WW
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Yeah i thought about everything else that comes after the construction of the “building” does not fall into unskilled labor and the cost is just the same.
If you look for some other video’s, you can see the inside of an apartment. The walls appear to be finished with normal drywall.
So I wonder if this is attached to the block walls or if there is a light framing between the wall and the drywall. Such framing would also all for routing of utilities.
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The other question I have is what is the R value of the material? Does it provide energy savings (HVAC) over traditional framing?
WW
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insulation aside, the best R value is from pirates
(and I didn’t notice any electrical wiring or plumbing in those walls)
Right.
The lego concept is nothing new. But we need to be better about finding ways to reuse what is otherwise filling landfills.
Why?
We have an endless capacity for landfills.
the ONLY issue with landfills is where to put them.
They are expensive (and sometime dangerous)
when they are less than 3 hours away from a population center,
but in terms of total capacity we have not even scratched the surface.
Peeing in the ocean does not make the tide rise.
If you ask me, large chunks of New Jersey should be razed and turned into national landfills. I would start with Camden.
Likewise, the next time New Orleans gets flooded, it should be rebuilt 100 miles inland, and that whole area should be turned into a landfill so that we can start to reverse the damage we’ve done to that land by “taming” the Mississippi River. (The Mississippi used to refresh the elevation of that land with silt, but we’ve stopped that from happening, and parts of it have sunken below sea level.)
But why should we reuse stuff? A lot of what we throw away does not naturally decompose like mankind’s waste material used to do. Plastics, especially. The Renco product uses this stuff (among other materials) in the composite. There are also companies out there that make wood-like products (used in decking, park benches, and other uses) composed of composite that includes recycled plastics.
Plastic pollution is a concern for lots of people and organizations. Why not reduce the landfill content of this stuff and put it back into good use?
One caution, however, about recycling plastics … more and more studies are finding that chemicals from the plastics leach out. I saw a report that water in basic plastic water bottles may contain such byproduct. (The study and reporting may just be alarmist pap, but we do know that BPA is raising a lot of alarms now.) It’s possible that we will find that houses built with these composite materials will turn out to be toxic leach pits, much like the problem that urea-formaldehyde insulation turned out to be.
Perhaps, but plastic does not seem to escape from landfills.
Nationally if we never build or expand another landfill we have enough current capacity for 63 years.
That, however varies a lot by region.
Landfills in the extended Philadelphia region used to (1990s) take garbage from both NYC and Philadelphia. That’s not even remotely plausible now.
But in terms of total capacity, we have not even scratched the surface.
In my book, just because we can pile up trash doesn’t make it a good idea to do so.
That’s why Camden would be a great landfill location. Right across the river from Philly, and it would wipe off the face of the earth a very diseased city that really no longer holds any redeeming value.
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Camden is a very valuable city.
Without Camden, Camden residents might move near me!
It’s stark, the sudden drop off when you leave Cherry Hill and enter Camden.
Camden residents can stay right where they are and pick valuables from their new landfill. They can sell recyclable plastic to the Renco manufacturers.
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