has anyone used this product? Might by a little high for some budgets .Looks good and will stop bullets though some people with little home out where people hunt might want to stop or slow down a bullet.When Huntting season is on I stay away from the hunting areas that buck fever or bird fever just ask chenny :o www.permacrete.com ANother down side is you have to find a dealer that will sell you the product.Or become a dealer.
I didn't look very hard, but they don't seem to say how wonderfully green their product is.
Which is kind of important to me. There are some chemical sensitivities in my past.
Some of the denser rammed earth will stop bullets with 8" blocks, IIRC.
I under stand about the not being green just a thought .There is alot of green ideas that I agree with it is just hard to get past code enforcement.I would rather buuild a straw bale .but limted funds .engineered plans if you can get the county to go with it .And add another year in the planning department.My goal is to build a house .with out the bank involved and have to meet the mortgage.So I can have some type of fredom.I am not going to hook up to the grid as another payment I can run the power my self been ther done but why .To any one that can build green all for it if every one did as much as they can in every house you would see a savings of resources.When I work on any ones house I try to incorperate some thing in it .People have a hard time under standing you can not push it on them all at once .A little at a time they will go with some times for the novelty or they think it make good sense.I hope I did not step on toes as I think this is a great fourm and helps folk achive a dream or gaol that any one have build a house fills 8-)
Any concrete product has a high embedded energy content. In long-lived structural applications the material can be considered green if it will actually live out its useful lifetime. In reality most things are torn down long before that time comes. ;)
This is a franchised product and installation system using dyed and stamped concrete. This system may be panelizing thin slabs as well for walls and such. There are lots of new opportunities for concrete opening up via the technology of new chemical additives. This can now make concrete into a much more flexible and controllable material. There is even a glossy trade magazine that comes out once a month where people show off their artistry.
Most of this seems to be done in the dryer climates where slab floors and patios play a bigger role. Some of the fancier installations are a little too Las Vegas for my taste... and we are into flash not green here!
I was thinking not just about the concrete but about the "High-solids, water soluble acrylic polymer" (no VOC's though, and that is good) that they use.
Getting your place up is a good idea. It can be done faster with proven technology, and something fast to do walls--like stick building.
It certainly may be that I'm just too comfortable here to build. ;)