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January 26, 2011In Belgrave, in the Dandenong ranges not far from Melbourne, 86 year old former service station owner John Novrotny is persevering with his affordable building revolution, despite a lack of support from the building industry and government. His innovative new method was inspired by a visit to a rural Californian village built by Spanish missionaries three centuries ago. John’s business is Therma-Wall Industries.
The Future of Construction
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that buildings are responsible for more than a third of all CO2 emissions created by human activity.
This impact comes from the manufacturing and transporting of materials and also the ongoing emissions from heating and cooling.
Bricks are the industry bad boy.
John and his son Edward worked with the basic historic ideas to come up with a sustainable housing solution for today’s world and RMIT University’s Dr Indu Patnaikuni, senior lecturer in Civil Engineering, calls it ‘the future of construction’.
At a recent Structural Engineering and Construction Conference this industry expert spoke of the boundless potential of the new wall construction method.
For 150 square metres of wall surface -a 110 square metre/12 square house – John’s method releases only 30 kilograms of CO2 which could be offset by planting 2 trees.
The Process – Adressing Climate Change & Housing Affordability
John’s Novoram wall construction system uses a post and beam construction method with a rendered and insulated rammed earth block infill wall.
Lightweight formwork is used as no ramming takes place within the formwork.
Once the rammed earth blocks have been placed in position the wall is reinforced by a thin layer of cement for increased stability.
Reduced costs come from:
- Cost of building materials
- Unskilled labour
- Minimal heating and cooling costs due to passive solar design and thermal mass
Application For Rural, Under-Developed & Disaster Struck Regions
The simplicity of the building process means unskilled personnel could easily be trained to construct their own houses and workplaces.
In third world countries local people could use little more than the earth beneath them to construct cheap, resilient buildings.
Resistance From Building Industry And All Tiers Of Government
Despite all the advantages of this construction system, John continues to meet with resistance from industry and government at all levels!
“The biggest problem in this technology not being very widely used by now is that there is far too much opposition from vested interests..
You can’t sell earth, so you can’t make money on it.”
Houses Built
Around 30 Therma-Wall houses have been built in NSW and Victoria, including a Clyde North house that the Sustainable Energy Authority assessed as ‘one of the most energy-efficient ever built in Victoria’.
Click here for more info.
Faster and cheaper rebuilding in fire and flood affected regions?
3 Comments
My mud brick/rammed earth/wet poor home in the outer east of Melbourne is 19 years old.
Having designed with energy efficiency in mind it has become a very affordable place to live in that I need little consumable energy input into it. The sun does the heating and wind the cooling and the thermal mass evens it out. Only a small amount of wood is used each winter to top up the hot water and room heating.
When the neighbours have a fire on I’m still wearing shorts inside. I do wear clothing to suit the season though.
Wet pour is more energy efficient as less handing of the materials is needed but the wall building is a little slower unless one uses long low formwork rather then the traditional 600x1200mm monolith rammed earth size.
Note that adobe/mud walls are not good insulators so it is best to add insulation layer to the out side of the wall if you are not going to or can’t use a lot of passive solar heating.
A enclosed verandah cuts down the wind against the walls and lowers heat loss in winter.
Straw bale with a thicker render on the inside would work well too.
Thanks for this extra info Paul. Does ‘wet pour’ refer to concrete or an earth slurry of some sort in contrast to John’s rammed earth blocks? Pardon my ignorance of construction methods (!)
How well would the concept apply to tropical areas in terms of thermal mass/heat and withstanding cyclonic winds?