[Cob] RE: [essa] Ferro-cement Roofing Channels

[Amanda Peck]

Michael Shealy's roof for the Unruh house doesn't look like standing seam to 
me (that's usually got little points where the adjacent pieces curl around 
each other).

Mold and algae can grow anywhere, on any kind of roof, inside any kind of 
tank, including poly (I seem to have to take my 125 gallon tank to the car 
wash at least once a year) although some friends are experimenting with 
colloidal silver generators to prevent in-tank growth.

What I was thinking was that it might be easier to clean off a metal roof 
(rent a power washer. just use water as a cleaning fluid?), as opposed to 
going up with bleach and scrub brushes to try to get the stuff off/out of 
somewhat porous concrete.  I'd really just as soon not work with bleach at 
all, let alone pour it into ground water, or the stream 50 feet away--in the 
case of my barn, and besides I hate working on roofs.

My friends in the Western Pacific who do rainwater harvesting get to drain 
(one section at a time?) their huge (23,000 gallons in an area that gets 
over 80 inches of rain a year, but there is a dry season, and some of the 
rain is in the form of typhoons--a lot of water going out the overflow) 
tank, crawl in with brushes and cleaners and scrub for, from their reports, 
days.

Regular maintainance is just what one needs to do with water systems, 
especially if we're storing water.  The people with wells or artesian 
springs don't seem to have as much to do.

And you did notice that the .pdf file--couldn't get the other one to open 
with pictures--showed ten or so people working to unmold one of those 
channels?

Auroville sounds pretty wonderful--some of the buildings are gorgeous.

Rob wrote (snipped)
Ferrocement should be safe for catchwater systems
which is one of the reasons that it piqued my
interest.  I am planning on building my own
ferro-cement cisterns to store water regardless
of whether I build channels for the roof.  There
is a lot of information on ferrocement out there
and it is used extensively in 3rd world countries
for water collection and storage.  The overall
price for materials is incredibly low compared to
other items.

Standing seam metal roofing, like the one
pictured  on the Michael Shealey designed home
would be ideal, but it is also very expensive.

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