Construction Informer

Seldom do I come across an item that is being sold to the makers of construction equipment and materials. So when this crossed my screen I thought a closer look was in order.

The company, Tah Industries, is offering a packaging solution for adhesives, epoxies and urethanes that makes it possible for the people using the product to just use a standard caulking gun. Ingenious. I remember using a few of these materials. One was used to cement rebar into concrete where one pour was joining another. The side-by-side dispensers always seemed a bit mystical - like you were employing some special skill or something to use them. Clip the ends evenly, push the plunger evenly, and until they started coming with caps, you had to use it all or loose it.

Since the product specific containers can now be abandoned, we ought to see the costs of some of these materials come down…right?

Photo: Business Wire

This isn’t the first source I’ve heard this from and I have done some independent research on the numbers and found it to confirm this trend - more people are living alone. This isn’t just in some countries, it appears to be affecting all developed countries. Recently Droog and KesselsKramer, both in Amsterdam and both involved in a project by the name of S1ngletown, mentioned in their press release that:

Young urban professionals choose to stay single for longer, older bereaved live for longer. In spaces designed for multiple occupancy we find only one. In vehicles with four seats, we routinely find a solitary driver, and in beds made for two, one lays down to sleep. Sources predict a third of the population of the developed world will be single by 2026. This shift will profoundly alter how we live and work in the future. It will affect buildings, products and services.

One of the ways builders are addressing the needs of singles is by using compact kitchens that come as complete units. One such product is called Circle® kitchen. As seen here the entire unit revolves, it puts everything at the users fingertips and it can be closed up when not in use.

I’ve wondered lately why people are still insisting on using so much money and space for their kitchens. Supermarkets can’t put out enough prepared foods, and busy professionals are going to meal planning centers where they do all the meal preparation in advance - in someone else’s kitchen. People are in love with the idea of cooking at home but the expensive cabinetry and appliances aren’t really getting the use it was thought they’d get. From an environmental perspective, new research suggests it requires far more energy for people to prepare meals at home than to buy prepared meals that achieve an economy of scale during preparation and cooking. New surveys about singles find they are eating out more.

Other demographic and lifestyle indicators go beyond singles. One report says that of people who live together, fully a quarter of them don’t sleep together, and, more people are now requesting dual master bedrooms. Astute architects, designers and builders are probably beginning to ask a lot more questions related to what clients really want to have in their homes.

As I was writing this post, Josveek Huligar weighed in on the radon and granite topic with a very long comment. That comment is available for reading here.

Huligar is associated with the NSRA (National Stone Restoration Alliance) and is understandably miffed about recent news reports claiming that granite poses radon risks. So much so that from September 6-8 Huligar was having a piece of radioactive granite installed inside his home. The event was on live web cam (don’t you just love this new technology). At about 6 pm on 9/8 the plan was to test the radon level in the home. Also at this site you can view some great pictures of granite slabs that are being tested for radon.

While it is clear Huligar went to a lot of time, trouble and treasure to pull this off I don’t see how it could confirm there is no radon threat from granite. Not everyone’s home is like Huligar’s, or built on top of the same type of material, or made of the same things and with the same level of tightness, etc. And while the granite sample is representative of a granite slab bearing the highest radiation, the amount used is unique to this home. At best, this will prove that the particular piece of hot granite installed at Huligar’s either increased the home’s radon levels, or didn’t.

For those of you who need to catch up on this ongoing story you can find an older post here that gives some of the history going back to 1995. In July 2008 the Marble Institute of America (MIA) issued a press release ostensibly quoting the EPA that granite countertops cause no significant health risk.

Now, in view of recent media coverage MIA continues its insistence that granite countertops pose no health threat related to radon. The latest release names numerous studies showing:

No scientific evidence exists to suggest that granite countertops are a source of meaningful exposure to radon.

And later:

This study is consistent with all the studies we’ve conducted in the past, which have found that granite countertops pose no health risk.

As I’ve followed this unfolding war of words I wonder why MIA isn’t listening to what some people are saying. Instead it blames “the media” for fabricating information. From my readings the questioners of granite safety are not concerned with “meaningful exposure,” it’s about any exposure at all. How much exposure to radon is acceptable to a mother or father with children? That probably depends upon how much they trust the EPA’s assessment of what an acceptable level of exposure is, and how much radon exposure their particular home generates. Some people may feel that there is no acceptable level of radon exposure. Are they incorrect to feel that way?

The results of exposure to most substances aren’t really known for lifetimes. So to say there are no health risks associated with granite could be similar to someone saying back in 1940 that there were no health risks associated with smoking cigarettes.

But to focus on the big picture, this whole debate isn’t just about granite. Rather, it’s about how the pursuit of profits compels the sale of products without knowledge of the long-term consequences that will result from their use in particular situations. So it comes down to the buyer being aware, and of course that implies them having enough information to be aware.

Rather than repeatedly claiming there is no risk associated with granite in the home the industry might serve itself better to present the latest evidence it has and then let the potential buyers make up their own minds as to whether or not the level of risk is acceptable. Because, there is a risk. There is always a risk.

Time and time again we relearn things. For a very long time buildings that were built in southern climates came almost automatically with wide verandas and wrap-around porches. One of the main reasons was it kept the sun off the sides of the building in the summer and made the structure cooler.

Of course those verandas took up a lot of room and they were a lot of maintenance. So, once air conditioning became affordable and the need to cram more and more structures on less and less space superceded thoughtful development, the verandas and porches disappeared, often being replaced with anemic-looking overhangs at entry points to the buildings.

Now, there are a bunch of buildings sucking up gobs of electricity in order to stay cool. When you add in the pavement and concrete that was lavishly poured in around these structures you have some wonderful heat sinks that require more and more electricity to keep them habitable.

So it isn’t surprising that the verandas are coming back, but these are not typical verandas. Carrying with them all the same benefits that might have been used to sell verandas 50 years ago these new verandas, called awnings, are cropping up everywhere. They are coming in an amazing array of styles, many looking a far cry from an RV awning - although there are those as well.

As these pictures show modern awnings offer some eye-appealing options. It may offend the architectural sensibilities of some I suppose, but for those paying the electric bill it might be time to give pragmatism its due weight. You can find out more at PAMA.

Getting definitive answers related to the suitability of materials for building is a challenging task. Sure there are a number of standards organizations like ASTM, ANSI and ASCE but navigating their massive repositories of information and then paying for the information once you find it adds to the frustration for someone looking for a few quick answers.

Industry groups and manufactures do their own testing and specifying but of course you have to view much of that information with the understanding that they are understandably biased in their assessments. The national government and other governmental bodies are supposed to be unbiased sources of information but all too often that isn’t the case. Or, worse the agencies issue statements that are not definitive.

Just as an example we could re-visit the age old discussion about what is better for sub floors - Exposure 1 plywood or Exposure 1 OSB. In this case the new versions of OSB that are sealed from moisture (sometimes called enhanced OSB) and are being hailed as the best answer given that a lot of subfloors get wet during construction. While manufacturer displays with water running over the surfaces of their products to demonstrate moisture resistance look impressive this is not what really happens when sub floors get wet. Then, there are all the edges of OSB that are cut edges that haven’t been resealed before being installed that open up points for water to be absorbed.

In a 2007 study done by the University of Tennessee enhanced OSB was shown to swell significantly when wetted while the plywood showed the lowest average thickness swell of any product. The report concluded that even enhanced OSB should be protected from becoming wet.

Earlier in an Architect Online article that covered the short comings of both materials there was no answer that either product was better than the other.

While citing some rather dated references another article recommended close scrutiny to the types of project, the moisture hazards and other factors when specifying OSB due to its potential for a 30 percent increase in thickness due to water penetration when compared to plywood’s nine percent increase.

Ultimately, in the struggle to get objective information about materials people are often left to assimilate the range of impressions available and come up with their own hybrid approach to deciding when and where to use those materials.