Cob Ecological housing and building

[Bj örn Brandberg]

Dear Dr Bulgarelli and others,
Thank you for reminding me. The last few weeks have been just too much.
I received your first message and I was very pleased to receive the list. I am consequently forwarding the message to the listed addresses, and some others, hoping for more information and feed back. If appropriate, I should appreciate if you could forward the message to other people and projects with similar problems/ambitions. 
     Relevant literature references are appreciated.

Our present and most urgent problem is to find simple fast economic and environment friendly ways of protection wood and grass insulation from insects, especially flying ones. Don you have any ideas. For indoor wood we are considering dip treatment of green wood with some chemical which would penetrate the wood through diffusion. What kind of chemicals should we be looking for, concentrations and dipping time. A lowest cost alternative (which may turn out expensive) is non treatment, but how can we know??

What about outdoor wood? The same dip protection completed with creosote painting? Because of cancer risk and smell we want to avoid creosote as far as possible.

The heating problem of the houses will probably be solved with air borne solar heating using a glass covered box and a small electrical fan. This may partly also solve the humidity and ventilation problem, at least when the sun is shining.

We are still considering water borne systems for hot water. A problem with the water borne systems is the cost for the pipes and panels. We are thinking of using glass fiber reinforced soft PVC for the pipes, as commonly used as a hose pipe for gardening. We should be able to use a very low pressure. Easy installation and lower cost, but what about durability??

As a heat accumulator we are proposing 200 l oil drums, one or two placed side by side and connected at top an bottom. The first tank should be heated with copper coil at the bottom and heat drawn from the top with an other coil of copper. Through gravity the two tanks should exchange heat, hence increasing the accumulation capacity. Swedish sources propose 500 liters as an appropriate volume for the accumulator tank. For our needs and more sun 200 l is probably enough. Our solar collectors may be less effective though. Additional heating of the tanks with electricity or firewood may be required. Comments?

We are still looking for a low cost way to make an effective solar panel. The principal problem is the cost for families in areas where firewood is scarce. Any ideas?


Best regards
Bjorn Brandberg

for the LightHouse Foundation
P.O.Box 131, Eveni-Mbabane
Swaziland
Tel: +268-40067, 43243
Fax: +268-40067
e-mail: b.brandberg at mail.com



Giorgio Bulgarelli wrote 30/7/98 5:51 

>Further to my message of 9:58 +0200 1998-07-11, still unanswered, 
>regarding the above, please check also the following addresses.
>
>Intermediate Technology Development Group
>Bourton Hall
>Bourton on Dunsmore
>GB-RUGBY, United Kingdom. CV23 9QZ
>E-mail: <ottor at itdg.org.uk>
>
>Shelter Forum
>Post Office Box 39493
>22 Chiromo Access Road off Riverside
>EAK-NAIROBI, Kenya
>E-mail: <elijah at itdg.org.ke>
>
>Centro Experimental de la Vivienda Economica
>Igualdad 3585
>B° Villa Siburu
>RA-5003 CÓRDOBA, Argentina
>E-mail: postmaster at ceve.org.ar>
>
>German Appropriate Technology Exchange - GTZ
>Dag-Hammarskjøld Weg 1-5
>D-65760 ESCHBORN
>E-mail: <gate-basin at gtz.de>
>
>Development Alternatives
>B-32 Tara Crescent
>Qutab Institutional Area
>IND-NEW DELHI, India. 110 016
>E-mail: <tara at sdalt.ernet.in>
>
>Regards,
>---

>>-- 
>Dr Giorgio Bulgarelli 
>Via Monte Gemma 2/3 
>I-00141 ROMA Italy 
>
>Tel./Fax: +39-06868 95705 
>E-mail:   <geobulga at iol.it>, <geobulga at compuserve.com>
>------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>