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Build a Better House [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-09-29  

It never fails to amaze me just how crummy are most of the dwellings built in either the USA or the UK.

When I lived in Texas, the houses were made of cheap, temporary materials. Joni Mitchell described them: “And they’re all made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same”. No proper foundations to hold them down in a tornado: just concrete pads. Walls of plasterboard (sheetrock) that you can easily punch a hole in with your bare fist.

Timber frame, at risk of termites, wet rot, dry rot and fire. After a tornado passed north of San Antonio I drove out there to see. All that was left: the concrete pads. The tornado had disappeared the houses and anyone and everything in them.

Then there’s the UK. Because the country is not liable to earthquakes, the British habit of building everything with teetering piles of unreinforced bricks continues. My last house in London, when inspected, proved a serious danger: the entire chimney, a teetering stack of Edwardian brickwork, had come away from the flank wall and threatened to crash down through the main bedroom.

RAAC: Roof falling apart. Image: The Times

Right now, the RAAC scandal is going on: thousands of buildings made with reinforced autoclaved aerated cement are disintegrating after lack of maintenance allowed water penetration to rot the rebar.

It’s no better in Ireland where the mica blocks problem (concrete made from unsuitable materials) is causing an epidemic of collapsing houses.

Here in Mexico houses are built better.

First, the foundation: an auger is used to take a core of the subsoil. The correct depth of foundations is calculated from this.

In the UK this isn’t done; instead, ‘generally accepted practice” is used. Pah. At least UK homes do have foundations, unlike American houses that blow away in the wind.

Secondly, walls. Using flammable materials hasn’t worked too well in California and all the other places subject to wildfires, has it? The Great Fire Of London stopped the use of flammable buildings in the UK. In Mexico we build in block or stone.

Adobe block construction. Image © Clive Warner

Unlike the UK, in Mexico a wall must be reinforced every 8ft in height and every 12 ft in length.

My house is a bit special by Mexican standards because it’s built of adobe blocks rather than the more common concrete blocks.

Example of reinforced support pillar. Image © Clive Warner

These adobe ones are made of a mix of mud and cement, then coated in waterproof stucco. Size: 8” thick, 9.5” high and 17.5” long. The thermal performance is excellent both in heat and cold.

This material is not load-bearing, so the house was built as a reinforced-beam skeleton first, then the walls.

The second image to the right shows one of the main support pillars, which is made of reinforced concrete.

Buildings all over Mexico are required to comply with the same standards to cope with earthquakes even though many states are not at earthquake risk.

The roof of a Mexican house is commonly constructed using hollow clay bricks and insulation block with a matrix of rebar, then poured concrete fills in and tops the roof. That’s about as tornado-proof as you can get.

Sometimes though, you see traditional styles such as in my house, which has a roof made in “Boveda” style.

The image clearly shows the support beams, which are steel girders. An expert bricklayer laid the arches and concrete finishes the top layer.

On mine. I have laid an additional topping of Hebel tiles (aerated autoclaved cement) to provide additional insulation.

In the photo you can see, to the right, one of the reinforced-concrete roof beams.

So, do you think YOUR house is constructed to a high standard? If you’re in a zone subject to tornados, hurricanes, or earthquakes, will it stand up to the test?

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