"E-mailable" House Snaps Together Without Nails (clemson.edu) 127
MikeChino writes: Your next house could snap together like a jigsaw puzzle without the use of any power tools. Clemson University students designed and built Indigo Pine, a carbon-neutral house that exists largely as a set of digital files that can be e-mailed to a wood shop anywhere in the world, CNC cut, and then assembled on-site in a matter of days. “Indigo Pine has global application,” says the Clemson team. “Because the house exists largely as a set of digital files, the plans can be sent anywhere in the world, constructed using local materials, adapted to the site, and influenced by local culture.”
Re:How do they know it's "carbon neutral"? (Score:5, Funny)
“Because the house exists largely as a set of digital files, the plans can be sent anywhere in the world, constructed using local materials, adapted to the site, and influenced by local culture.”
Geez, don't know what it's going to be made of yet they still claim it's "carbon neutral".
It just means all the carbon parts are painted beige.
And gluten free! (Score:2)
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Of course, it tastes like wood chips.
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any old blueprint can be emailed (Score:1, Funny)
And you'd think anyone with access to a laser cutter would have access to nails.
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And you'd think anyone with access to a laser cutter would have access to nails.
This seems better stated than most of the other rants that got upmodded.
It also seems trivial and obvious to continue that thought... the basic building supplies available world wide can be easily adapted to simple housing plans (for example, see the places that Habitat For Humanity builds... they're real houses with simple plans that ordinary folk can build out of inexpensive off the shelf materials).
How the hell is CNC milling all the parts more efficient than slapping together some 2x4's and/or cement bl
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And 50% of building is in site prep, foundation and utilities, so someone attempting to build this will end up with nothing more than a shed if you don't have utilities.
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Especially a set of solar panels with 17% efficiency.
http://sroeco.com/solar/most-e... [sroeco.com]
It looks like there are only 2 manufacturers even making panels that efficient, and they are the most expensive ones (understandably).
Re: any old blueprint can be emailed (Score:1)
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See if you can find some episodes of a British TV show called "Grand designs"
A moderately pompous but well meaning and personable architect travels around the UK visiting building sites and recording the process of construction. Not ordinary housing, but people who've picked unusual projects - medieval barn restoration, cut-into-the-hillside dwellings, mansions on small plots, etc.
A number of them feature plans that are designed to take advantage of high-tech pre-fab techniques. The plans are emailed to a c
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Neat (Score:2)
It's a cool project. Probably good for mass production, though plywood tends to be about 2-3x as expensive per board-foot, so there would need to be a lot of efficiency built in to match the raw material cost.
Also, it will be very difficult to customize.
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Also I'm guessing difficult to keep attached to the ground in high winds. I wouldn't want to be in this in any kind of adverse weather conditions.
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Oh, that's easy. It's not like the foundations will be made of plywood. You can tie things down with a minimum number of simple anchors (or complex ones, if you absolutely have to avoid bolts).
Using a bunch of plywood does mean having to be smart with shear wall connections, though. Without nails, there are no stressed-skin anchors or plate to web shear transfer mechanisms (field glue doesn't count). Which is, of course, bolsters my point about the inability to modify/customize the houses. The more highly e
...except for the bits that don't. (Score:2)
Nice work, but it's pretty clear from the article that only the structural bits go together without fasteners (mostly). All of the interior finishes, doors, windows, etc. all clearly use conventional screws/nails. Not surprising, but not really the 'snap-together' house that the headline indicates, unless you plan to live in a bare structure open to the elements.
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No, so you can repair/update the electrical or plumbing by popping off a panel, doing the work, then snapping it back on again instead of having to demolish and re-finish the drywall.
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Refinishing drywall is pretty trivial these days. Hell, you can buy a kit at your local hardware store, watch a video and fix it in an afternoon. The problem with panels is that they are never where the problem is.
Just a thought (Score:1)
Yikes. Some quick observations. (Score:1, Insightful)
Standard blueprints can already be e-mailed.
I would say the majority of existing homeowners did not use a single power tool to build their house either.
Will this meet building codes.
I see dimensional lumber in some of those photos.
Surely every potential homeowner / builder will have a cnc machine.
My mail client does not have the receive plywood feature. Can i upgrade?
An ikea threw up (Score:5, Informative)
And made this house.
No bolts? Thats a huge porch roof that needs to be secured lets the next hurricane rip it off. Sure you could go old school and use post and beam style but you still have to tie it down to the foundation.
Speaking of the foundation it looks like many small concrete blocks hopefully over slab on grade. It's not big enough to use as a service crawlspace I hope there is never a plumbing or vermin issue. There will be a vermin issue as it's a magnet for rodents and such. Again how they planning on fastening it to the ground so it does not blow away without bolts. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods happen even in some hippy dippy microhouse.
Combo PV and hot water, it generally makes sense you're effectively cooling the PV panels and using the waste heat.
My mid 70's passive solar house did most of this and did it better, a basement floor drain doubles as outside air natural convection will cool the house and it preheats outside air in the winter. My 1954 well architected home did the math for correct overhangs and orientation to deal with solar gain without throwing ugly boxes around the windows. Correct plantings do wonders leaves for shade in summer not so much in winter.
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There are lots of ways to anchor without bolts. A hook and clasp embedded in the concrete through a hole in a primary vertical element would work, as would several wedge retained mortise/tenon options. There are hundreds of years of timber joints to pull from (not that they are the most cost effective compared to a modern hold-down).
Their advantage is the possibility of deep members - much deeper than framing lumber. Their drawback is lateral/flexural/torsional stability problems, especially with few ways t
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That massive sail aka carport and porch roof would need something to hold it down, looking closely at the pictures it looks like traditional standoffs to the vertical supports those would have nails/bolts. From the looks of it it uses a lot of 2x lumber and some fairly long lengths at that.
Overall it looks like the whole things is just on blocks in a parking lot. Making this be a practical structure that meets code is safe to live in etc etc would require a lot of fasteners or a lot of effort to try and a
Not for cold environments (Score:2)
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Clemson is in South Carolina... They don't get snow often, but the houses are well insulated to save on cooling costs for sure.
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For heating and cooling, the delta is the overriding factor in efficiency. The difference between uncomfortable and comfortable for hot weather is probably a max of 40 degrees, though most often about half that. i.e. 75 inside vs 115 outside. For heating on the other hand. If it is near freezing, you're looking at minimum of 40 degrees, and possibly double that. Cooling is way easier than heating.
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Bullshit. Cooling requires a complicated air conditioning system with a condenser, evaporator, heat sink, cooling fans, and refrigerant lines running about. Heating requires fire or a hot piece of metal. It costs a heck of a lot less in natural gas to heat a house 40 degrees above ambient than it does to cool a house using the AC using electricity 40 degrees below ambient.
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Not only that, but most home HVAC systems aren't capable of cooling a house to 40 degrees below ambient. 20 is more typical, and you can improve on that some with good insulation and recirculation, but the heat flowing from the environment into the cooler house is still going to increase proportionally to the temperature difference. Heating, as you pointed out, costs much less in direct terms (though it requires burning a carbon-based fuel) because it doesn't have to move heat and dump it somewhere else, it
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Cooling is way easier than heating.
That explains why humans had Aircon millions of years before they discovered fire...
More environmentally friendly options? (Score:3)
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Wood frame homes are expensive. (Score:5, Informative)
Most homes in developing countries are built using bricks, clay, or concrete and cement. Wood, glass, steel and aluminum are expensive and rare in most of the world.
So why can't these digital files be adapted to clay, brick or cement construction?
Fundamentally all the materials have enormous strength in compression. We knew we could pile brick on brick, dirt on dirt and build enormous, stable enduring structures 5 to 10 thousand years ago. But all of them are brittle and they have no real strength in tension. They have very little elasticity. For a design to "snap" together, you need a little bit of elasticity and some tensile strength. You can not "bend" a concrete beam a little, snap it into place and it would not "spring" back to assume old shape with old strength. Bent concrete is dead concrete.
R & D on developing cheap housing for the developing nations is a very active area of research. Many universities around the world are working on it. But most solutions are dull, and do not lend themselves to flashy headlines. Back when I was in college, the very first rupee I earned in my life came from the Centre for Rural Development, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. We were working on natural gas from cow waste, cottage industries suitable for rural areas, efficient wood burning stoves, and cheaper construction techniques for mud huts. Internet has a role to play in rural development. But it is not going to be as simple as mailing a few files around the world.
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There's no reason that you couldn't have a masonry wall system and this kind of roof.
Of course, they're using plywood, which is about 3x as expensive as structural lumber (on a boardfoot basis), and CNC milling - which is not really "developing country" stuff. This is new age construction for hipsters. You make your couple million then go "roughing it" in a 900SF house for a few years and blog about it until the money runs out and you get tired of no Starbucks. Then you go back with your "world experience"
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And they blog about it incessantly.
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If it didn't use wood they couldn't claim it was carbon neutral. Kind of silly IMHO. If a structure requires carbon but has a service life of 100 years I would say it was well spent....
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Internet has a role to play in rural development. But it is not going to be as simple as mailing a few files around the world.
But meh slacktivism! Can't I just click "Share" on Facebook and make the world a better place?
Lumber is actually a very expensive material. Wood is plentiful around the world. But most of them grow in stunted, twisted, gnarled forms without much of structural strength.
That caught my attention to, but this is the reason that HDF was invented. The idea of "Emailing a house" is stupid, just like we all knew it would be. But the idea of flat-packing and shipping a prefabricated structure is what should be investigated further. The biggest hurdle in producing cheap housing in underdeveloped areas is their lack or absence of infrastructure such as heavy machinery to process raw resour
Re:Wood frame homes are expensive. (Score:4, Insightful)
The basic problem in developing nations, especially in rural areas, is the lack of capital. Let me give a simple example: India has the largest cattle population in the world. Rural Indian villages, and many parts of its cities too are deluged with cow waste. Imagine how much the life will be better if we could contain the cow waste to remove the odor, separate the combustible gases for fuel, and the remaining bio matter to be used as fertilizer! Fuel and fertilizer alone would justify themselves based on cash flow and the odor elimination is a pure bonus!
How much would it cost? What kind of high tech process you need to do this? You need to dig a pit about 25 feet deep, 10 feet in diameter, fill it with cow waste, cover it with some kind of plastic sheet or a metal lid or even a brick dome. You need a central pivot and some paddles to stir it once or twice a day. A smaller diameter tube to extract stuff from the bottom without disturbing the layers on top. Takes about two weeks for the anaerobic bacteria to start working. You can collect odorless natural gas from the top, pull buckets of organic fertilizer from the bottom. Once it gets going this can handle a herd of about 20 cows. The farmer has excess natural gas to cook, to make added products like par-boiled rice, or distillation or popped grains or make country sugar... all of them need lots of fuel. Fertilizer is valuable. Costs less than 250$ to build this. Still not much of market penetration. I remember making presentations to villagers back in 1980s. They simply don't have 250$ to invest.
Shipped prefabricated homes are developed nation solution. The lack of capital for to do even mind bogglingly simple things is just staggering.
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I live in Minneapolis, and my house was built in 1902, and arrived via rails exactly how you described. Most of the houses on my block are from the same time as well.
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USA has about 100 million cows. I calculated once that six cows can produce enough methane to drive a car for about 15000 miles. We could move 15 million cars off the imported oil if we could sell the idea of cow gas plants to the US farmers. But unl
Bricks don't grow on trees (Score:1)
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Where there are forests lumber is cheap. Just about every house in Canada, probably in the northern half of the US, and most the northern part of Europe has a wood frame and underfloor. I can go to any large hardware store near me and there are rows of lumber available. If I want to build a deck or patio it's the cheapest option. Same for a fence. In Canada we don't use it for the outside of the houses because other options are less maintenance.
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So why can't these digital files be adapted to clay, brick or cement construction?
Because there is no need. If you have brick and mortar, and know how to lay them, you can create your own house without outside help (which is pretty much what the developing world already does now).
This is a solution looking for a problem.
i would prefer a house be made of concrete (Score:2)
Emailing blue prints (Score:2)
Do people know that you can also e-mail blue prints for standard houses too? Does that make the house "e-mailable?"
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No, your house plans uses nails. Nails disqualify you. Try using something simpler like a CNC next time.
Sheesh, get with the times bud.
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LOL.
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BS is strong these days (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why, but outrageously stupid statements are becoming more and more common. No, this house doesn't "exist largely as a set of digital files". It exists largely as tons of wood. The *instructions* are digital files.
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One of their links to the the "Wikihouse", an even more barf-tastic name. Neither this things or the Wikihouse actually go into any detail as to what holds them together, despite it being the most attention grabbing part of the click-bait. Usually that means it is a gimmick. "No nails!" might mean it uses screws only, "No bolts!" might mean only nails...
90% website design, 10% house design. What could go wrong?
No basement? (Score:3)
Anywhere it freezes in the winter (which covers a rather large swath of the world, but certainly not all of it), you need to establish the foundation below the soil frost depth or face your foundation heaving each winter and slowly but surely twisting your building into collapse. This building seems to have been designed for zones where the ground does not freeze.
Also, what happens when the nice solar panels get covered in six feet of snow? Oh, right, not made for that application. And when the wind blows hard and tears off the nice deck / car park? Right, again, not made for that application, either.
So, OK, they designed a house for temperate climates with moderate weather in a way that does not require nails or screws. An interesting design challenge, somewhat like, "let's see how fast the two of us can run in a three-legged race!" It's fun, you might learn something about design, but isn't really all that practical. Moreover, I see a lot of very expensive finish ply in those photos, so this design isn't intended for low-income housing.
Lego house? (Score:2)
Umm, yeah. I live in Nebraska. Here, we have these things called "tornados." They're super windy god-sized vacuum cleaners that rake across the landscape periodically.
Do I really want a snap-together house the next time the tornado sirens start going?
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No, but after the [tornado / hurricane / monsoon / forest fire / mudslide / earthquake], use snap-together housing to keep the victims of natural disasters indoors. After watching the FEMA-funded disasters built near my hometown in Indiana and shipped to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, we could probably benefit from simple designs for temporary shelters.
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A portable shelter in the form of a 20ft or 40ft shipping container might be great because the infrastructure exists to move them around so easily. You could load a couple thousand on a ship to move them to the nearest port and then use a combination of trains and trucks to get them to where you need. Just need a few cranes at the site to take them off the truck and it's ready to go. Would have to be better than the trailers FEMA have before.
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A portable shelter in the form of a 20ft or 40ft shipping container might be great because the infrastructure exists to move them around so easily. You could load a couple thousand on a ship to move them to the nearest port and then use a combination of trains and trucks to get them to where you need. Just need a few cranes at the site to take them off the truck and it's ready to go. Would have to be better than the trailers FEMA have before.
Shipping containers require a lot of conversion work, as otherwise they're freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer. They're better than nothing, but so's a decent tent.
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Probably not. Wood is extremely expensive here. Unlike nails. Or bricks.
And I can't see you getting planning permission without an architect.
The reason people dont build there own houses here is planning permission.
CNC ... totally available EVERYWHERE! NOT! (Score:2)
Gee ... shipped anywhere they have CNC milling equipment AND plywood.
Not really as useful to the rural poor and disaster areas as it sounds if you need all that infrastructure.
that's a porch? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at those long wood beams... perfect, very pretty, and also expensive! Is there a house behind it? Very little on the porch is covered on their website, and it doesn't show up on any of their "sustainability" materials. Meanwhile, it features in half of the pictures on the competition website.
If they want to point out how they're using local materials and these new techniques, maybe get rid of that massive redwood "porch" that is neither local, inexpensive, nor innovative.
I know! Let's call it Autocad!" (Score:2)
"exists largely as a set of digital files that can be e-mailed to a wood shop anywhere in the world"
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Tiny is the new Big. (Score:1)
Alternatives (Score:2)
Old is new again? (Score:2)
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mail-order houses popular early 1900s (Score:4, Informative)
A pretty high quality one still around is the Nixon birthhouse at his library in Yorba Linda. I think it has a Great Room, a couple of bedrooms and bathroom. I've seen others preserved in Western mining towns. Pre-manufactured homes eventually superceded these.
Big problem with this method (Score:1)
Local materials (Score:2)
Cow farts and Bindweed?
Solar Decathloss (Score:2)
On a deserted island out in the pacific where the military needs to stash "stuff" CNC ply constructions soldiers jigsaw together no electricity required win-win.
Solar Decathalon competition optimized architecture for affordable environmentally sustainable energy contributing urban dwellings for human habitation - Loser.
Has to be said... (Score:2)
You wouldn't download a house would you?
...and blows away in a storm. (Score:2)
N/T
Re:Snap-tite isn't new (Score:5, Insightful)
I see is that there is plenty of dimensional lumber being used in that structural system. Different areas of the world use different dimensional lumber sizes than the US. Some areas of the world don't have dimensional lumber. Some areas of the world don't have the infrastructure required (dimensional lumber, CNC machines, trucks to ship the lumber).
I have concerns with the long term stability, durability of the structure. Nails and glue have been in use for a while (hundreds, if not thousands of years) because they work.
As a construction experiment in using new technology to find new ways to design and build buildings it is an interesting experiment. I applaud them for trying this. Its like looking at the concept cars that Ford, Nissan, Subaru, etc release every year and are loaded up with all sorts of outlandish features, some of which will obviously never get to production, some need some refinement and some are pretty good. I have no problem with someone deciding to build the equivalent of a concept car. Don't be surprised if your concept takes a long time to be adopted by the building industry. It will take that long to be vetted by architects, engineers, suppliers and contractors. Hell - it took almost twenty years for contractors to adopt Pro-Press pipe fittings as the preferred option over copper sweated fittings (and that is just copper pipe).
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Mortise and tenon predate nails and what we'd consider a suitable glue. Advances don't happen if people always stick only with what has always worked and not try other things that may work better or differently.
Snap Tight vs Glue vs Mortise/tenon (Score:3)
I won't use a technology/system that hasn't already been vetted through the insurance and rating agencies (UL, et al). If you come to me trying to get me to schedule/specify a product that hasn't made it pa
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I see you've never heard of post and beam construction. Back home, we have barns and houses that are hundreds of years old and post and beam (using mortise and tenon joinery) is still in use. It's also heavily used in furniture and cabinetry. Hell, when I make something for someone, I use biscuit joints quite frequently - especially when laminating.
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Post and Beam is a mature building system that has been in many cases outmoded by a faster, cheaper alternatives (in field stick building or in factory module construction). You can find "traditional" post and beam builders out there but they cost more than 2x4 con
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Good, fast, cheap: pick two. You've chosen fast and cheap, which is typical of the modern American society. Not saying this in a derogatory way, just stating my observation. I like fast and cheap too, in some cases.
I think the point of KGIII's post was that post and beam outlasts "modern" stick construction (fulfilling the "good" choice above). It may not be faster, nor cheaper. But it does withstand the tests of time and abuse. If someone is looking to build a home that their great-great-great grandchildren will be able to enjoy, pick "good".
It's all in your preferences, and what your expectations are.
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LOL That's true in every industry... Don't feel bad. We're all jaded. And when we really want to push "good" to a specific project, it's always fought against.
Re:Snap-tite isn't new (Score:4, Informative)
Not as much as you might think. Until the industrial revolution, nails had to be made one at a time by a blacksmith and were thus freaking expensive.
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Where did the 4th one go? I swear it was 3 nails. One for each hand and a single through both feet. The Romans sure weren't wasting an extra nail!
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It may have been three but they were really big nails.
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They nailed through the wrist, not the hand.
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The Gypsies (AKA 'gyptians) stole it, which is why they have permission directly from God to steal and it is not accounted a sin for them.
(You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. See Mieczyslaw Dowojno-Sylwestrowicz, in Gypsy Lore Journal, i. 1889, p. 253.)
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I can't see any contractor worth his salt saying "I'll build that building based on a computer file that can be updated by remote push down"
Nice straw man, and this is "5 Insightful"? The fuck?
Who the heck is talking of remote push down or undocumented changes? Do you even live in the same world I do? When the plans are final and approved, every contractor - at least in the U.S. - already gets their paper copies based on digital files that were a part of the bid package. They can also get those digitally, and have their site workers use whatever digital tech they care for to view those if they prefer that over dead trees.
The rest of your pos
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I have seen some sleazy attempts by architects and engineers to slide things in under radar. Undocumented changes between Bid sets and contract sets for instance. Luckily I was only the commissioning agent on that. You can bet there was a lawsuit over that little stunt when it got caught.
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I didn't think the rest of the post made any sense, either. This isn't being made out of 1/8" thick stamped balsa wood. It's much bigger and (presumably) designed to be much more sturdy because it's got different goals. The rest of the post is just as much of a strawman.
Lindal cedar homes since the 1970s (Score:2)
Linda's cedar homes has specialized in custom homes from logs milled to perfection so that snap assemble without much nailing or insulation. They are not milled locally but that's a good thing. Shipping raw logs or having large mills distributed around the country would be more wasteful than shipping the final logs. The homes they make are stunning custom masterpeices not prefab panel houses.