Browse Forums Eco Living 1 Jun 27, 2011 10:01 pm G'day people. I'm an experienced tradie who's owner-built before and will be building another house next year. This one will be a mass-on-the-inside / insulation-on-the-outside design for thermal stability using rammed earth or brick for mass (internall walls) and insulated steel/foam panels on external walls and roof. About 130 m² as there's just me to inhabit it. I know roughly what it should look like, but to save the work of the design and approval process I'm interested in buying someone else's design and plans, so if you can help out I'd be pleased to hear from you. Also, I want to find a steel section that can be laid flat on joists or bearers and then covered with concrete as a suspended floor in case I don't use a slab, so if anyone knows of one ...... (I know about Hebel stuff already). It wouldn't necessarily have to be supplied insulated as foam panels can be attached easily enough - I'm thinking of something like a heavy-duty trimdek-type section. It exists for commercial buildings but I don't know what it is called. Any info on steel/foam/steel panels available ex-Perth would be appreciated too. And finally, can anyone suggest a figure for the ratio of internal mass to internal volume for thermal stability ? ie. kg of mass per m³ of volume ? I've read dragongirl's thread re a RBV project and want to know more ...... Thank you. edit - After reading some of the other threads I'm not sure if having too much internal mass is possible, provided that the walls and roof are very well insulated . Also, the house I'm in at the moment is an early 70's double-brick with brick internal walls, a ventilated tiled roof, and ceiling insulation with (undesirable) varied thickness (rural area - an old pear orchard where there's lots of rats to eat the pear seeds and they have rearranged the fibreglass insulation on the ceiling to make nests) and the (suspended) floors are jarrah boards on jarrah joists and bearers on brick piles. The house is actually very thermally stable and I think that the design has managed to fluke good thermal stability - the double brick exterior walls are reasonable insulators and the internal brick walls provide useful mass. I'm not at all interested in gaining heat from an expensive, glary, glassy north wall - heating will come from a wetback stove , the fridge, lights, tv, and me. Heating isn't that hard to organise, and I can always wear a jumper -what is more desirable is summer coolness, warmth being easier and cheaper to organise than 'coolth'. Re: design for 33° south latitude WA mk.2 2Jul 26, 2011 12:21 pm Hi sunmonkey, are you talking structural insulated panels (SIP) for your steel/foam panels, aka coolroom panels? we too are currently exploring the options for this; there is some discussion over at the ATA forum which might be of interest to you - there are threads on both SIPs and thermal mass our first thought too was slab on ground for thermal mass. however, it is also possible to have a raised floor, essentially a cool room panel on some steel anchors & then to put reo on the panel and pour a concrete floor over it - apparently this is a standard method of construction for coolrooms which need a concrete floor. there is a pdf file with technical details showing this on the austec panels (sydney) website; we are still musing over this one, it would certainly be good for winter warmth, but are also interested in the positive earth berm effect for summer coolness. Well these guys are not looking good... I sent them a written enquiry last week and they have not yet replied. If they cannot respond to a simple… 4 10624 Adam Baines Grad Cert Bldg Surv / Grad Dip Bldg Surv / MSAAPA Accredited Building Professional APB20210035 Builders Lic 183023 Pest Control Lic 84868 Ph 0412202336 PO… 3 46814 Keen to hear from people in the area who have got KDRB done on whom they got the build from? Looking for recommendations. Thanks 0 21091 |