Subject:
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Re: living in an ABS house?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Wed, 16 Feb 2005 17:51:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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806 times
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In lugnet.general, Joe Strout wrote:
> A post in the Toronto newsgroup about building a concrete home has put an idea
> in my head, and now it won't leave me alone. Maybe spitting it out here will
> make the voices shut up. :)
>
> The idea: could some enterprising company (ideally, TLC) develop a line of large
> interlocking bricks, perhaps comprised of an ABS plastic shell filled with some
> form of insulation, such that you could actually build a home out of it?
>
> All right, crazy I know, but let's just explore it a bit. Each brick would be
> maybe 100 x 40 x 20 cm or so, though of course you'd want several different
> shapes, perhaps corresponding to 2x2, 2x4, and 2x8 LEGO bricks. We'd also need
> some plates, for floors and ceilings, and some beams in various long lengths
> (which would of course be more expensive) for holding up the ceiling or second
> floor. The beams might need to be made out of some tougher material, but would
> still interlock with the standard bricks.
>
> There would of course be roof bricks (slopes) too, for making the roof. Maybe
> even curved bricks, with which you could make many more interesting designs.
>
> I'm not sure how one would attach siding or interior drywall -- perhaps you
> wouldn't. If the bricks came in a variety of colors, maybe that would be good
> enough. Or, instead of expecting one brick to be both inside and outside wall,
> the bricks would be made equivalent to 1x2, 1x4, and 1x8 LEGOs, and you'd use
> different color (and texture?) bricks on the inside and outside walls. You
> could even build your walls with a suitable gap to make it easier to run wires,
> pipes, etc., which would come out through specialty bricks containing outlets or
> fixtures. Other specialty bricks would provide attachment points for pictures,
> shelves, etc. (much like in a concrete hotel or dormoratory).
>
> I think the thermal properties of such a house would be comparable to a
> wood-frame home, especially if you filled the gap behind the outermost walls
> with extra insulation.
>
> Security? Doesn't seem like a major problem to me. To break in, an intruder
> would have to climb all the way up to the roof and start prying bricks off
> there. It'd be substantially easier to just break a window in a traditional
> home.
A chainsaw would probably be quicker, and no more obvious despite the noise!
People tend to notice when someone is on the roof. Heh - if Santa was too fat
to fit down the chimney, he could modify it :-)
>
> Cost is certainly a concern. I can imagine the basic bricks costing a couple
> bucks each, with specialty bricks and odd shapes costing more. But that's still
> reasonable; you'll sink thousands into the bricks for your house, and thousands
> more for the wiring and plumbing, but hey, it's a house. And when you get tired
> of the layout, or want to add on an extra room, you just rip it apart and build
> it different. How cool is that?
It's a new house every day! However, a couple of bucks is £1 and I can buy real
bricks for 9p each, the same price as 2x4s from LS@H! You would also need a lot
of glue if you expected the house to be waterproof and wind-proof. The colour
would fade in the sun too :-( (and I don't fancy having a black brick house to
avoid that!)
>
> All right, no doubt about it, it would be a niche market. Not many people would
> want to live in a LEGO house, and of those, even fewer would be able to talk
> their wives into it. :) Still... can anyone see any obvious reason this
> wouldn't work?
>
> Thanks,
> - Joe
A couple of reasons inserted above. The chainsaw suggestion is only as
realistic as for wooden or plastic windows in real houses. Someone once told me
that a plastic window salesman had boasted to him that nothing could get through
a plastic garage door. The salesman soon shut up when he produced a chainsaw!
Hot water, heating and cooking might be a problem, as would warping in summer
sunshine, or cracking under extreme frost. Polypropylene is better under impact
than ABS, so I might have a skin of that on the roof. I would keep the cavity
walls, so as to have somewhere to put wires in the wall, as well as having
redundancy of waterproof layers!. It might be a good idea to cover the roof in
(Lego?) solar panels, to avoid heating the roof and to make good use of the
heat.
Still, one advantage is that the level of skill required to build the house is
much reduced, so what you spend on bricks, you save on labour. Given the size
of the bricks, twice the size of Primo/Quattro, perhaps they should be called
"Octo".
In response to the question "So do you live in a Lego house?" I usually respond
"I might if TLC would sponsor me with enough bricks!".
Another question arises though: If, as well as having a house full of Lego, your
house was made of Lego, wouldn't you get fed up with it?
Mark
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | living in an ABS house?
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| A post in the Toronto newsgroup about building a concrete home has put an idea in my head, and now it won't leave me alone. Maybe spitting it out here will make the voices shut up. :) The idea: could some enterprising company (ideally, TLC) develop (...) (20 years ago, 15-Feb-05, to lugnet.general)
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