Cob Re: Re: ICBO's Building Standards Magazine

[Strawnet at aol.com]

Just a very quick reply...

Paul Salas wrote:

>I agree with MJ and others in congratulating those who authored or
>participated in publishing the work. It's a step in the right direction
>for planting seeds in the minds of the BO's of the world and exposing
>alternative construction methods for those who are "unaware" that they
>even exist.

>If you are well read and have some indept knowledge of the various
>subjects, you will not find much in the way of "new stuff" as most of
>the articles were written with the purpose of giving an overview to a
>realitive novice audience. Much is a repeat of already published work.

As I've been involved over the past several years with the building codes 
community, it has become painfully evident that the building officials 
who are aware of these alternatives in anything but the most superficial 
way are few and very far between.  In many cases, they've not even heard 
of some of these things nor been exposed to the issues that I raise in my 
overview article about the unintended consequences of what we are doing.  
So this is in a very real sense a first step toward creating a basic 
level of awareness of these alternatives and the reason they are 
important.  Certainly I would not expect most of the readers of these 
listserves to learn a great deal, technically, from reading these 
articles.  Just getting this in front of building officials in this forum 
is a big step. And having these articles published by ICBO lends 
credibility to them all.

>I found Joe Tibbet's "Rammed Earth: Developing New Guidelines for an Old
>Material" interesting for bringing forth that the application of
>construction methods in one area (adobe) can not be transferred and
>applied directly in another (rammed earth) without training, education
>and altering trade practices. 

This is always an important consideration in everything we do - at least 
the consideration of those things we think are transferrable which 
usually need careful scrutiny. Assumptions are dangerous things...

>It would be great if a follow-up in a year or so was conducted to see
>how many jurisdictions have modified their local codes to permit
>alternative materials and methods as a result of this enlightenment.

Indeed it would be nice to try to follow up in some way, but what I would 
like to suggest is that if anyone finds that these articles made a 
difference in your dealing with specific projects in any jurisdiction, 
that you let DCAT know with just a brief note about it.  I'm not sure 
what is going on but I've still not seen either of my messages in my 
listserve digests or any of the other discussions that may have taken 
place.  But it is for another time, because I'm out of here for three 
weeks.





David Eisenberg
Co-Director
Development Center for Appropriate Technology
P.O. Box 27513
Tucson, AZ 85726-7513
(520) 624-6628
(520) 798-3701 fax
dcat at azstarnet.com
strawnet at aol.com (direct personal e-mail)
http://www.azstarnet.com/~dcat/
http://www.azstarnet.com/~dcat/barriers.htm