http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/sep/06/texas-wildfires-kill-4-more-than-1000-homes/ I am surprised you guys are not talking about this. What is truly sad is that a lot of these people will build back with firewood houses. "As long as you can insure stupid, people will build stupid" I love stress skin dynamics but not the way it has become in the US. You guys make fun of China but America has earned the status of the laughing stock for the world in the way we build our houses. China has a lot of faults but at least they have the intelligence to look at EPS and legislate it out of their society starting in 2013 and completely by 2015. They do not have an insurance driven economy and a fire station on every corner so they do not accept houses that burn in 10 minutes. Ask any honest fireman and he will tell you they hope to keep fires from spreading--not necessarily put out the fires as the primary, initial goal. I know this is a provocative post but I say it is time America takes a serious introspective look at our building methods and materials.

What type of home would survive a major fire? Maybe a concrete one would survive but wouldn't the smoke damage make it uninhabitable?

Smoke damage can be cleaned up. Setting the houses on fire around you does not seem like the "leave-it-to Beaver" neighbourly thing to do.

tesla-was-right,
Please explain this: "China has a lot of faults but at least they have the intelligence to look at EPS and legislate it ...OUT...of their society starting in 2013 and completely by 2015."
Thankrichms

Until you an find a recent U.S. construction fiasco similar to this one:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/438999/1/.html

I don't think you have much room to promote Chinese building standards as superior to those in the U.S.

You may want to check on the EPS ban for construction (it's being rescinded in many areas). Flammability is a much bigger issue when you have insufficient fire protection standards.

Richm
The statement is the explanation china will start limiting EPS in housing construction in 2013 with a total ban by 2015. As I have said for years, one needs not preach too strongly against EPS and Sheetrock and other bogus building products. The market will regulate itself given enough time.
The problems caused by these types of inferior building products will eventually lead to their demise. It is just sad to see how long it takes!
"the difference between prophesy and paranoia is manifestation."
In a couple of years we will see if I am a prophet or just a wishful thinker.

I trust my sources who have told me this is true as they are high enough up in the system to know.
I would not worry about it too much, I doubt the Us "leadership" will respond in a logical fashion to the lucid action of another country--even their landlord. (--:

Posted By Torben on 07 Sep 2011 08:40 PM
Until you an find a recent U.S. construction fiasco similar to this one:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/438999/1/.html

I don't think you have much room to promote Chinese building standards as superior to those in the U.S.

You may want to check on the EPS ban for construction (it's being rescinded in many areas). Flammability is a much bigger issue when you have insufficient fire protection standards.

I hate when that happens

example of superior Chinese construction methods, cheap labor + cheap materials = bamboo scaffold on hi-rise ( no OSHA regs needed here)

I don't think anyone in Shanghai was laughing at "inferior" U.S. Building Codes when this fell over.  I understand this is an area where China is actaully trying to a little more like the U.S. (implement building codes).  It probably makes sense to limit EPS in China given some of their infrastructure/utility issues.  We also have variances in building codes based on local risks (Hurricane risk in Florida but not Kansas, etc.).

"cheap labor + cheap materials" I seriously doubt that any US built hi-rise would manage to remain structurally sound if it toppled to the ground. Granted, that doesn't matter much when the structure laying on it's side on the ground. But that doesn't say "cheap materials" to me. It says poor planning, and poor execution, and sheer stupidity, but it really looks like the "building materials" were up to the task ... with the possible caveat that there was some massive failure somewhere around the foundation.

Chris, Thanks for sending the article from a couple of years ago about the building that fell over due to geotechnical mistakes. It is interesting to note the amazing fact of how a building designed to primarily resist gravity loads faired so well when it fell onto it's side. I was actually consulted on the project to determine the causes (yes there was more than one) There certainly has never been a case of a building failing in the US since they do ot use bamboo scaffolding and are so smart and all. The discussion was not about how culturally obtuse you can be, the discussion was about the facts that building with firewood can sometimes lead to buildings catching on fire and catching several neighbours houses on fire--but they did not fall over due to subsidence caused by excessive rains and mistakes made by the neighbour next to the building being built.

the building was complete and the bamboo scaffolding had been removed--otherwise the changes in the soils dynamics would not have impacted the building integrity so.??.
I did not see you there as part of the forensics investigation team. I guess I was too busy looking at important things.
Have you ever been on properly erected scaffolding made of bamboo
Maybe it fell because it had no EPS??
Maybe the scaffolding fell and pulled it over??
What is the point you are trying to make that other countries use different temporary staging than America does??

Posted By tesla-was-right on 07 Sep 2011 10:47 PM
Chris, Thanks for sending the article from a couple of years ago about the building that fell over due to geotechnical mistakes.

Tesla; I can't take credit for that post it was posted by Torben

Chineese Drywall

"Chinese drywall" means what?? proof of??
The "Chinese drywall" issue was and is also a US drywall issue. This will be shown more fully when the chemistry is revealed in the litigation that needs to happen.
The German company who made the drywall in China (no cognizance of quality by Germans, everyone knows that) was made with what is called FGD (Flue Gas de-sulphurization) It is a substitute for Gypsum which is CaS04 (Calcium Sulphate)
FGD is usually high in CaS03 (Calcium Sulphide)
FGD is used by american manufacturers in the eastern part of the country due to the lack of Gypsum.
It is not as stable as CaS04
In an american style of living the transitory suphur builds up and caused problems.
My point is, the dynamics do not belong to JUST Chinese made drywall--be it made by Germans or not.
In the coming litigation people like me who understand the chemistry will show it is a worldwide industry issue.
Chris, I think you should maybe consider talking about something you know about--like SiPs
It brings me no pleasure to point out the facts. I just think the industry needs to have a plan to deal with the change that will be forced upon you.
Do you think we should just wait until one day we cannot use EPS to start thinking about alternatives??

In an american style of living the transitory suphur builds up and caused problems.

Are you talking about Americans having "tight" homes?

Tesla may have been right, but you could not be more wrong.

So the best you got is, "Those Chinese buildings are able to withstand a fall better than any other buildings"? Or better yet, "If you are going to build a building to topple over, make sure the Chinese design it."

Slave labor and slave wages, hiring Americans to sit in offices pretending to be bosses to lure other countries' factories in becasue no one trusts the Chinese, and lastly and most importantly a communist form of government lining the pockets of its powerful by forcing poor peasants to work in unbearable conditions are but a few examples of why China is such a horrible place.

The China you laud so vociferously is a despicable place run by despicable people. And if you are as well educated as you act you know what I say is true. And if you know what I say is true and you still pretend it to be anything else, then you are as despicable as the Chinese communist you herald.

Posted By tesla-was-right on 07 Sep 2011 07:05 AM
  China has a lot of faults but at least they have the intelligence to look at EPS and legislate it out of their society starting in 2013 and completely by 2015.

Got a reference on that?  IIRC the Chinese move is motivated more by greenhouse-gas blowing-agent issues and the cost/uses of oil & natural gas, not the fire hazard, and I thought it only applied to disposables (coffee cups and packing peanuts, etc), not construction materials.

And the bio-polymers they're intending to replacing polystyrene with aren't necessarily fire retardent, eh?

China is a red herring in this discussion. The question of whether we ought to be building houses out of kindling is a good one, but it does not need to reference what China does. Any discussion of switching to less flammable materials needs to look at the cost of doing so. If the whole country switched to stuccoed and plastered AAC, how much extra energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions would be caused by the manufacturing and transport of all that concrete? We'd have relatively fireproof (and hurricane-proof) structures (so long as we didn't hang a bunch of draperies on the walls), but is it really feasible? What are you really suggesting as an alternative to the current common materials?

I know it was a red herring, but I was curious to find more detail on the evolution of China's polystyrene policy. I didn't think it applied to all EPS for all applications, but if it does I'd be curious as to why. The sheer volume of China's use of EPS in packing materials for exported manufactured goods probably dwarfs the worldwide volume of construction-material EPS by an order of magnitude, but I don't have any data on that.

Fiber-cement siding is a pretty-good ignition barrier over most types of construction. (Including OSB SIPs) Composition shingles in combination with wood roof decks are a hazard in any type of wall construction. Ceramic, cement and metal roofing usually does much better. In Los Angeles only fireproof finish roofing is allowed.

Vented attics are also a fire hazard, sucking burning embers or flash-flame into the attic. SFAIK codes in fire zones haven't outright banned them, but some builders & architechts are keyed into that. Low-E heat rejecting windows can make a difference too, but aren't required by code for that reason. Wood & vinyl windows are a fire hazard in a fire, but aluminum clad versions take much longer to ignite.

Steel doors (even EPS-filled steel doors) fare much better than fiberglass or wood doors too- go figure?

AAC is pretty fireproof, but it's also pretty low-R- takes a fairly fat wall to meet code in US zones 5 & up. But it's low density, has only fraction of the embodied energy of ICF walls.