Thanks, COG, a few people I sent this to also found it quite interesting.
Although it's comparatively low-tech and not quite so interesting as the advanced process shown in the animation video I posted earlier, I have a suggestion for anyone considering building a house, lake house, cabin in the woods, or anything else.
For my Dallas home, I had the builder use something called "Thermasteel" structural insulated panels. It's a pretty cool process. You send your architectural plans to the company and a few weeks later they ship you a truckload of panels made in their factory. They're 6" thick closed-cell polystyrene foam units with steel studs C-channeled into them in a staggered fashion, so that heat transfer is minimized. I opted for the beefed-up "hurricane panels", which meet the tough Miami-Dade County building code imposed after Hurricane Andrew about twenty years ago. (Of course, we don't have hurricanes in the Dallas area -- but some of our spring supercell thunderstorms can get pretty vicious!)
The panels are factory made to precise tolerances with perfectly square openings for windows and doors. The crew then screws all the stuff together after placing and fitting the panels, sort of like you might have done if you built stuff with an Erector Set as a little kid. (You younger guys are probably not familiar with those.)
The finished result is a much stronger, more energy-efficient, quieter structure that's also not subject to termite infestation. The whole idea makes good sense to me. And the energy efficiency is
incredible! It's a little bit like having your whole house encapsulated within a giant styrofoam cooler. I think it's superior in almost every way to what you get when you go the "conventional" route and simply have a crew come out and hammer together a bunch of 2X4s and 2X6s.
Here's a 5-minute demonstration video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMXk0-uZBYM
I also enjoyed viewing the "constuction" of the blonde narrator!
I doubt seriously that ekim008 has ever even heard of Schumpeter!
