[HN Gopher] Thomas Edison's Concrete Houses
___________________________________________________________________
Thomas Edison's Concrete Houses
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 88 points
Date : 2023-10-29 10:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| clashmoore wrote:
| The concrete houses reminded me of the George Eastman (founder of
| Eastman Kodak camera company)
| [estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eastman_Museum)
| which is now a museum in Rochester.
|
| Built in 1905 of reinforced concrete.
|
| Worth a visit.
| xnx wrote:
| Concrete is probably underutilized as a building material for
| homes in the US. Though there are high carbon costs for cement
| production, there are a lot of benefits to concrete: very strong
| against wind, very fire resistant, impervious to most pests,
| sound proofing, air-tight, good insulator when sandwiched with
| foam. https://www.iconbuild.com/ isn't yet 3D printing concrete
| homes at scale, but they have a small neighborhood of some really
| good looking homes going up in Texas.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > there are a lot of benefits to
|
| One disadvantage: much harder to do changes / remodelling down
| the road.
|
| Cinder block may be better for later flexibility than poured
| concrete:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_block
| samtho wrote:
| Most of the time, rebar and concrete is placed and poured in
| the vertical column created by laying the block effectively
| turning into a vertical slab. It's so much easier to build a
| wood-frame dummy wall on the inside to house utilities.
| jschveibinz wrote:
| Unfortunately, concrete production is a pollution problem.
|
| _Cement industry accounts for about 8% of CO2 emissions_
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cement-industry-co2-emissions-c...
| scythe wrote:
| This number keeps growing because all of the other emissions
| are finally going down. I memorized it as five percent a
| decade ago.
|
| It's a point source of carbon, which is the best case for
| capture. Some of the carbon could be made into plastic
| (particularly polyoxymethylene would be easy) although you
| might find that demand is saturated well before you have used
| up all of the capture.
|
| Bigger problem is that due to the extreme temperatures
| required (the essential crystal structure, called alite, can
| only form above 1250 C) the facilities are large, expensive
| to construct and difficult to modify. Because the reaction
| produces a dust plume, they are often sited in less regulated
| jurisdictions, which compounds the problem. But capturing the
| carbon and capturing the dust likely require some common
| components.
|
| This is arguably an opportunity for Latin America, which has
| historically had low local cement production due to tighter
| environmental regulations vs Asia. Its road and rail
| infrastructure lags as a result. (The durability of PC is
| also highly desirable in tropical environments!) But a proper
| implementation of clean cement is not yet well understood,
| and economic incentives for cleaner imports are merely
| theoretical at this point.
| little_goat_boy wrote:
| Cement is so c02 intensive largely because the chemical
| reaction which occurs release a large amount of c02. From
| what I remember the energy use for the furnace is 10%
| compared to 90% from the fundamental chemistry.
|
| This is what I remember from working for a start up that
| was helping make low carbon cement, the numbers could be
| wrong, but it's more complicated than just the energy to
| reach the high temps.
| bbarnett wrote:
| We need to bioengineer vines or something, actually
| bacteria would be best, to grow insanely fast. Then grow
| them while the slab cures.
|
| Then after grind them up as mulch abd fertilizer.
|
| We can outfit the bacteria with a natural inhibitor.
| Maybe a lack of lysine.
|
| Yeah. That'll work.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Some researchers are experimenting with additives of
| various sorts to use concrete for carbon sequestration:
| https://news.mit.edu/2023/new-additives-concrete-
| effective-c...
|
| The obvious economic quirk about capturing carbon in
| concrete is that given time and pressure you can convince
| carbon to harden. Concrete that continues to pull in
| carbon in its process in theory has good chances to be
| stronger and hardier. If it continues past the initial
| set, you get "self-healing" concrete.
|
| You joke about plants, but yes plants have been doing
| variations on that for epochs now, there is probably some
| more lessons to apply from them if we want to build a
| "diamond age" with all the excess carbon we've spewed as
| a culture.
| boringg wrote:
| High carbon cost of cement for sure (until we find viable new
| materials to bring that down which companies are actively
| investing in). That said a concrete home, if properly built,
| lowers the lifetime costs of CO2e as you have better heating
| and the product life is exceptionally longer!
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Too many contractors can't get concrete right. I see so many
| new builds with cracks and spall damage. So many basement or
| garage slabs with a few big cracks in them. Stick frame is more
| fool proof for sure
| MisterTea wrote:
| The problem is too many contractors are crooks.
| Animats wrote:
| Most of the world lives in concrete buildings.
|
| There's a problem of where to put the infrastructure. If you
| lay pipes inside concrete, they're really hard to maintain. So,
| often plumbing, electrical, and HVAC just punch through the
| walls to outside equipment, plumbing, and conduit. Look at
| small low-cost housing in Asia. Mini-split air conditioners and
| pipes all over the exterior.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| <So, often plumbing, electrical, and HVAC just punch through
| the walls to outside equipment, plumbing, and conduit.>
|
| That's true for commercial bldgs, but almost all home
| dwellings in America with slab foundations have the plumbing
| and some hvac lines inside the slab. Repairing water and
| sewer lines in these homes is very expensive.
| xp84 wrote:
| If I understand correctly from my neighbors' experiences,
| they just cut up your walls and put new pipes in there and
| in the attic when the time comes that you inevitably
| develop a slab leak. it seems like this is probably a case
| where it has plenty of advantages for the first owner/1st
| 30 years (pipes neatly out of sight on the first floor) and
| when it eventually fails, it will be someone else's problem
| besides the original builder or even original owner in most
| cases. Maybe this has changed in recent years though with
| the switch from copper to PEX, idk if they can just put
| that in the slab.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| In New Zealand PVC pipes are used in concrete slabs for
| sewage, which in theory should last something like 75+
| years. Water, I think, is still put in the dry wall
| cavity.
| kulahan wrote:
| Doesn't that just imply that a concrete home would have
| this problem everywhere, instead of just in the foundation?
| marcinzm wrote:
| You could do what they do in larger US buildings. Non load
| bearing walls are not made of concrete so vertical pipes go
| into those walls and are encased in drywall. Bathrooms and so
| on have their horizontal pipes below the ceiling of the space
| underneath, covered by drywall, so just need to punch a
| single hole in the concrete floor per pipe.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > If you lay pipes inside concrete, they're really hard to
| maintain.
|
| I'd like to introduce you to a magical invention... it's
| called "ducts" :-)
|
| You can have them behind walls, above ceilings, between
| rooms, between housing units etc. Of course, if the building
| was not build with maintenance in mind, or neglected to
| consider future potential needs (e.g. HVAC not catered to in
| buildings from the early 20th century) - then you have to run
| things on the outside; but even in those cases, new external
| ducts can often be constructed, using concrete or other
| materials (e.g. metal frames and whatever you like as cover,
| e.g. cement-board, sheet metal etc.)
| Animats wrote:
| Yes, you can, but people don't like it. There's classic
| Wiremold, but put that in a house and the value drops.
| There is an exposed plumbing as an aesthetic thing, but
| it's not popular.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.graana.com/blog/concealed-vs-exposed-
| plumbing-di...
| tomcam wrote:
| Didn't know that was a thing. I love it.
| tomcam wrote:
| Sure, if you were smart enough to have... all your ducts in
| a row. Ahem
| aylmao wrote:
| In Latin America hollow brick is often used for walls. I'm
| not in the construction business, but I'm guessing it has to
| do with cost, insulation, and the ease of breaking in a
| crevice to lay conduit lines.
|
| If you want to install a line and there isn't a pre-existing
| conduit in the wall, you do have to chisel one in. It's
| definitely more effort than with a "hollow" wooden wall, but
| it's not terribly bad.
|
| > Look at small low-cost housing in Asia. Mini-split air
| conditioners and pipes all over the exterior.
|
| I'd attribute this to the "low-cost", not necessarily the
| "brick/concrete". I'd imagine in the USA houses would be pre-
| fitted with more conduit, and homeowners could afford the
| installation of more as needed.
| bluGill wrote:
| Wood is also very strong against wind if engineered correct.
| Both need something else to air seal as air will go through.
| Yes it is fire resistant, but unless your insulation and other
| building material is also fire resistant you gain nothing
| important: either way a fire will gut the house and need
| expensive work to repair. Wood is also a good insulator when
| paired with insulation.
|
| Concrete is a useful material to build with. However it isn't
| the miracle that many advocates claim.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Here's a detailed walk through of the Lennar development from
| last month by a pretty detailed home builder/contractor:
|
| Revisiting Lennar & ICON's 3D Printed Neighborhood 6 Months
| Later with Matt Risinger
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPTps7e9SqY
|
| Here's one of the homes at the level of a lay person's level of
| knowledge:
|
| Inside a 3D Printed House That's Actually (kind of) Affordable
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG7KMjV8zMk
| xnx wrote:
| That Matt Risinger video is exactly the one I watched that
| educated me that this process has gotten beyond the prototype
| stage. Great videos, but I usually watch on 2x speed because
| the information density is kind of low otherwise.
| DWakefield wrote:
| Does anyone know where there are pictures of the interiors of
| these homes? I'm very curious about the concrete bath fixtures,
| but can't seem to find anything online that definitively shows
| the inside of an Edison concrete home. It's also interesting to
| see this in light of all the news recently about 3D printed
| concrete and how there are many of the same challenges now that
| Edison must have had to deal with then. Plumbing, electrical,
| insulation, and so forth all have to be incorporated into the
| design or tacked on afterward.
| graphe wrote:
| Check out some urban exploration videos
| https://youtu.be/-knB658OpC0
| throw0101c wrote:
| Insulating concrete form (ICF) is popular in some quarters:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulating_concrete_form
|
| Instead of setting up formwork [0] with rebar, pouring and curing
| concrete, and then spending time (=money) tearing things down,
| the formwork is an insulating foam that is left in place. One
| consideration is that you then have to put some paneling in front
| of it (on either/both interior and exterior faces).
|
| Depending on the aesthetic you wish to have, you can have smooth
| concrete exposed or have textures, e.g., board-formed:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1JLy8ZSH2Q
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688MeG_RKRM
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formwork
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| I built a 100'x60' 2 story building using these blocks with
| just me at age 20 and a 16 year old kid. Spent the days
| building lego brick wall and laying and tying rebar. Cement day
| was mostly a rest day watching the pump truck fill the section
| of wall. This is a fantastic construction method in many
| climates. The biggest downside of raw concrete structures is
| the lack of insulation.
| tomcam wrote:
| Amazing! How did you learn this at age 20? Now I feel like a
| pathetic underachiever
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| On this job. Pretty much read the instructions and off to
| the races. The GC that hired me stuck around for a week or
| so to make sure everything was going smooth then he was off
| keeping the supplies flowing and would just check in every
| few days. The ease of building with ICF is a huge draw. It
| takes zero experience with concrete or building forms.
| tomcam wrote:
| Learning something new every day. Thanks much for this.
| graphe wrote:
| Ironic because the technology is called insulated concrete
| forms. Newer ones are supposed to have an ok r value unless
| the older ones were much different.
| https://buildersontario.com/icf-r-value
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Yes, I was saying that ICF fixes the problem of concrete
| not being insulated. Without insulation a concrete building
| feels like a cave.
| briffle wrote:
| there is a blogger that built a 'momplex' for her mother and
| mother in law in Alaska out of ICF forms, and she has some
| great blog posts on how they built it, the steps and work
| involved, as well as many plans and designs for the furniture,
| cabinets, etc, she built for inside the duplex. Her site is
| execellent for people interested in learning about woodworking,
| but the momplex series is facinating
|
| * https://www.ana-white.com/woodworking-
| projects/maincategory/...
| karaterobot wrote:
| Ha, I've used a couple of her plans to build simple
| furniture. I didn't know about this backstory. Neat!
| xnx wrote:
| I was surprised to see a concrete pour below freezing
| temperatures. I'll have to read more about that.
| hedgehog wrote:
| The curing process is exothermic so it's possible the
| insulated forms keep enough of that heat in to make the
| process work even in the cold.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I once had to patch some broken pavement for insurance
| during mid December when it was 38 F out. After some
| research and speaking to a friend I covered the wet
| concrete with a trash bag and placed an old cargo blanket
| on top for insulation secured with a sheet of plywood
| weighted down with rocks. Cured just fine and ins agent
| was happy.
| munificent wrote:
| The Orlando Public Library is a little too brutalist for my
| taste, but is an interesting example of board-formed concrete:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_County_Library_System#/...
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah a big downside of concrete construction seems to be that
| a significant proportion of builders/architects just say
| "fuck it, we'll leave the bare concrete exposed" and you end
| up with monstrosities like that.
| archsurface wrote:
| They're not saying "fuck it", it's a deliberate aesthetic.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Not all bare concrete construction is a brutalist
| nightmare, look up Tadao Ando's work.
| IshKebab wrote:
| This is pretty much the first thing that came up when I
| searched for him:
|
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipPq8IzhBMH8PJBuK
| cVS...
| tomcam wrote:
| ngl I think it looks pretty good. Way more visual interest
| than I expected
| wwweston wrote:
| There's also some inversions of ICF where the insulating foam
| is on the inside and the concrete blocks are layers on the
| outside. OmniBlock is the manufacturer that I can remember but
| there may be others.
|
| Not sure what the tradeoffs are but I'd assume two big pros are
| (1) concrete's easier to attach things to and (2) concrete can
| be directly finished both on the exterior and interior.
|
| I'm not sure how people run electrical and other utility
| through these. And I'd expect that half the inspection / code
| in the US has no idea how to handle either ICF or related, but
| I'd love to be wrong.
| glimshe wrote:
| You can still custom-build a concrete house today and put regular
| siding so it looks just like any other house. You can't tell it's
| concrete from the outside, but the house is a lot tougher -
| especially against hurricanes.
| samtho wrote:
| Prior to tech, I primary worked in construction during and right
| out of high school.
|
| Cast-in-place concrete dwellings have never caught on despite it
| making a tremendous amount of economic sense. While it has a
| foothold in the market for specific applications (basements,
| retaining walls, commercial buildings, etc), a concrete house
| form in-a-box poses some logistical challenges and human ones.
|
| First, the vision here was to be able to drop a form and creates
| a single pour/unibody structure (like injection molded plastic).
| That is very difficult to do and most concrete work is done in
| multiple stages for this reason. The main challenge is the
| creation a form that is sufficiently supported on the inside to
| create the "void" of the living space. You're having, instead, to
| pour a slab, wait a sufficiently long time for it to cure enough
| to support weight, and do the walls and ceiling next.
|
| The other logistical issue is internal reinforcement, which is
| what rebar is for. Concrete, as a building material, can really
| only resist compressive loads, which makes unaided concrete
| highly unsuitable for applications where there is a void
| underneath (in our home, for example, under a window frame, under
| a ceiling, or in infrastructure, as an overpass) However, by
| using iron-reinforced concrete, we can turn shear forces into
| compressive and by using pretensioned concrete (stretching of
| reinforcement cables prior to concrete pour), we turn tension
| into compression as those stretched steel wires want to return
| back to their original shape, it's like an internal lasso keeping
| it together.
|
| The last logistical challenge is installation of all utilities,
| which means in/under slab and wall piping (water supply lines, in
| floor heating, DWV, etc), electrical with conduit setup going to
| masonry boxes, outlets, switches, light fixtures.
|
| The point here is, setting up for a concrete pour is not as
| simple as erecting forms. When the concrete pour is cured into a
| structure, it's now a very inflexible material to work with and
| any wall penetration needs to be checked against blueprints, new
| electrical need to be run on the surface, leak repairs need to be
| done with very specialized equipment and a tunnel created under
| the dwelling, etc.
|
| The other main problem is that people don't want complete
| concrete homes. Without in-slab heating, it is a cold, hard,
| unforgiving material that allows for zero flexibility and repairs
| are a nightmare. Just like software, homes should be built with
| maintenance in mind because that's the normal state in which it
| is worked on. Plus, it feels like a prison. At least it won't
| burn down?
|
| I have a lot of gripes with slab-on-grade construction[0] for
| this reason, and every dwelling I've built has had at least a
| crawl space, often a basement where everything is serviceable.
| The basement is usually CMU (concrete masonry units, aka cinder
| block), precast concrete (slabs trucked in), or, rarely, ICF
| (insulated concrete forms, basically in-place formwork with
| concrete in the middle of two pieces of foam insulation like an
| ice cream sandwich[1]).
|
| I think there are some things we can learn from commercial
| buildings where you can have concrete skeletons[2][3] but large
| cut-outs where you can build walls. Inside the concrete pillars
| are PVC channels that let you thread wiring and plumbing, and
| other things through without having to do a concrete penetration.
| To built the house part, you effective put up wood frame walls in
| the voids or an aluminum-framed window installation (like a
| storefront assembly).
|
| Side note: If you have ever wondered why you see basements in
| colder climates (and conversely more slab-on-grade in warmer
| ones) is because the bottom of your construction need to be
| situated under the frost line to prevent shifting caused by the
| ground freezing. So if you have to dig 4ft down anyway to reach
| that point, maybe just dig out a 5ft hole and install a basement
| instead, then your can have your home's first/ground floor about
| 3-5 feet elevated. Slabs made to handle the shifting of ground
| due to freezing, liquefaction, or unstable building surfaces are
| called "rafts" and are not used very often compared to other
| methods.
|
| [0]: https://anchorfoundationrepair.net/blog/slab-foundation-
| how-...
|
| [1]:
| https://images.finehomebuilding.com/app/uploads/2017/10/3011...
|
| [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_frame
|
| [3]: https://www.understandconstruction.com/concrete-frame-
| struct...
| mrspuratic wrote:
| Many thousands of these (perhaps 17k) were built in Dublin,
| Ireland from mid 1930s-40s. Poured/shuttered concrete and
| rebar, concrete floor at ground level, internal walls are block
| work.
|
| I live in one -- recently had insulated externally (100mm EWI)
| which has drastically improved its thermal properties. About
| 50% of the floor area downstairs is the original bitumen
| sealed, uninsulated concrete. No ducts, you want extra wires or
| pipes you make a hole in 250mm concrete :D
|
| https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ucdlib:47011
| https://digital.ucd.ie/index.php?q=crumlin+area+6
| https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/remembering-herb...
|
| Just to add: there were many identically dimensioned houses
| built in parallel, of brown or yellow brick. These were at
| junctions, roundabouts and along major roads, but the majority
| are concrete. I've seen it humorously referred to as "Simms
| City".
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Timber-framed or post-and-beam are a great alternative to
| concrete skeleton, but sadly very few residential areas are
| zoned for it. Much cheaper and faster than platform framing,
| works for both commercial and residential.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Post and beam was significantly more expensive than stick
| frame, as of the last time I looked into building a house.
| munificent wrote:
| _> If you have ever wondered why you see basements in colder
| climates (and conversely more slab-on-grade in warmer ones) is
| because the bottom of your construction need to be situated
| under the frost line to prevent shifting caused by the ground
| freezing._
|
| The other reason I've heard is that many warmer climates in the
| US are also very wet. Along the Gulf Coast, you basically can't
| have a basement unless you want there to be an unanticipated
| swimming pool in it because the water table is only a few feet
| below the surface.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are some very cold areas where nobody builds a basement
| for this reason, they dig in footings or drive pilings to get
| below the frost line. where water table is not an issue
| though the cost to dig out a full basement isn't much more
| than just the footing and you get some semi-usable space.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| I have heard that too, I am not sure how true it is. You
| pretty much won't find a basement in Texas anywhere, even
| though the water table is hundreds to a thousand feet deep
| most places. In Harris county (where Houston is) 1 out of 11
| measurement wells is cutting it close (17 feet) the rest are
| over 90 feet deep.
|
| https://waterdatafortexas.org/groundwater
| btbuildem wrote:
| Many countries of the former Soviet Bloc built entire
| neighbourhoods from prefab concrete slabs -- I'm sure you're
| familiar with the awfully drab aesthetic these brought.
|
| The construction of these was relatively straightforward
| though, and (especially important in apartment buildings), the
| solid concrete walls have great soundproofing qualities.
|
| With a bit more expense, these buildings could've been made to
| look more attractive, and have more variety in terms of floor
| plans. I've been following some of the building automation
| trends, and the pre-fab components approach seems to best
| balance the many concerns.
| aylmao wrote:
| As you mentioned, I'd attribute this to the cost and not the
| material. In Latin America having "exposed concrete" walls or
| ceilings is it's a whole trend right now. The look of course
| involves nicer, well-worked cement, and tends to be paired
| with either dark woods and metals painted matte black, or
| light woods and linen whites.
|
| Some examples:
|
| [1]: https://www.planosdearquitectura.com/diseno-
| departamento-dup...
|
| [2]: https://www.lahaus.mx/ed/tulum/nativa-tulum
|
| [3]:
| https://www.legacysir.com/sales/detail/10-l-647-c9gshd/av-
| de...
|
| [4]: https://www.icasas.mx/venta/departamentos/ph-estilo-
| industri...
|
| [5]:
| https://www.portalinmobiliario.com/MLC-1421396709-moderno-
| de...
| carabiner wrote:
| Anyone reminded of Tesla's gigacasting? Pop out an entire car
| frame as a single part from molten steel, versus 400 separate
| parts:https://www.reuters.com/technology/gigacasting-20-tesla-
| rein.... Wonder if we could do this with houses now.
| intrasight wrote:
| Perhaps cast from AL a set of standard panels which can then be
| bolted together and have shotcrete and insulation be sprayed
| against them. The AL would remain on the exterior. All kinds of
| cool designs possible. They could do all that in a factory and
| ship out modules.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| If it can't fit down a highway or requires a crane to install
| you're not going to save much money when compared to labor is
| my understanding.
| rmason wrote:
| A non-profit just created a 3D printed concrete home in Detroit.
| It cost over $230,000 although they expect in volume the cost
| would drop.
|
| https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2022/10/18/detroi...
|
| You can buy a pretty nice house in a nice neighborhood in Detroit
| for under $150,000 and a decent one for $75,000. Both far larger
| than 1,000 square feet and featuring two car garages as well. So
| the only market I can see for these homes is government
| subsidized projects.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| First cars vs horses would be an apt comparison here.
| Automation had been slowly displacing human labor... the
| question is when, not if.
| fragmede wrote:
| I can buy a shed from Home Depot for <$1,000 which is $229k
| less than that concrete home in Detroit if all we want to
| compare is price. So the question is how good are those $150k
| and $50k houses? If they're anything like the rest of American
| housing stock, they have utter shit for sound insulation,
| andmoft aren't much better for heat/cold insulation. Not that
| concrete is any good for thermal insulation, but sound
| insulation is a very underrate but very critical aspect for
| anything resembling dense housing.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > You can buy a pretty nice house in a nice neighborhood in
| Detroit for under $150,000 and a decent one for $75,000.
|
| That's probably under cost of construction, though, right?
| Maybe this is just way cheaper in the US than here, somehow,
| but current all-in cost of construction in Ireland for a one-
| off house is on the order of 2500eur/sqm, so about 250k eur for
| a house this size.
| jccooper wrote:
| Notable that the Edison houses aren't form-cast like we do today,
| which is just structural and rather rough; the concrete was meant
| to be the finished wall both interior and exterior, including the
| roof and all interior and exterior ornament. The forms were
| nickel-plated cast iron.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/edisons-system-of...
| rasz wrote:
| so hot in summer, cold in winter, best of both worlds :)
| elzbardico wrote:
| Even outside the US, concrete houses are not very common outside
| specific architectural styles like brutalism. What is very common
| are reinforced-concrete structural elements, but the walls
| themselves are made of bricks and mortar, or even concrete
| blocks, but rarely cast concrete.
| clnq wrote:
| The purchasing power equivalent of $1,200 in 1990 is about
| $40,000 today.
| adolph wrote:
| Edison's Patents Regarding Concrete Houses:
|
| Process of constructing concrete buildings:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US1219272A/en
|
| Apparatus for the production of concrete structures:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US1326854A/en
|
| The first was cited by John Zachary Delorean in a patent titled
| "Building construction." [0] _DeLorean managed the development of
| a number of vehicles throughout his career, including the Pontiac
| GTO muscle car, the Pontiac Firebird, Pontiac Grand Prix,
| Chevrolet Cosworth Vega, and the DMC DeLorean sports car, which
| was featured in the 1985 film Back to the Future. He was the
| youngest division chief in General Motors history, then left to
| start the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) in 1973._ [1]
|
| 0. https://patents.google.com/patent/US3778953A/en
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_DeLorean
| graphe wrote:
| Menlo park was also made of Edison concrete.
| https://www.menloparkmuseum.org it looks like it's in great
| condition, so is a certain road on the east coast. Forgot the
| Edison concrete contracts, but the old stadium was also made of
| Edison concrete. I always wondered about it's makeup, it's an
| excellent concrete.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-30 23:00 UTC)