The Return
of the Solid
Wall.The |
|
History's favorite wall is back. Very
new. And very improved.
 A friend of mine lives in
a renovated 150-year
old stone farmhouse of
the sort that frequents
the pages of
Architectural Digest.
Its walls, built of stones collected from those
left scattered in the neighboring fields by the
last retreating glacier and cemented
together by the land's first settlers, represent
a technology that has been with mankind
quite literally since the Stone Age.
Remarkably similar dwellings dating from
medieval and even pre-Christian times still
exist today, from the Greek Islands to the
South of France, and from the Scottish
Hebredes to the Mayan, Inca and Aztec
ruins of Mexico and South America.
(Egyptian concrete columns built 3,600
years ago are still standing. And the ancient
Romans used concrete to achieve the
lasting strength of the Pantheon and the
Colosseum!)
It is equally difficult to deny the primitive
beauty of my friend's rugged, newly
sandblasted walls, bathed in halogen
lighting, and the practical drawbacks of
such a wallsystem.
The insulation factor is poor-to-non-existent.
The place requires copious and costly
blasts of heat in winter, and air conditioning
in summer, to be barely liveable.
Yet on the plus side, one cannot enter the
home without instantly sensing the
enormous weight, solidity and permanence
of such a strong and silent dwelling, such a
comforting contrast to the flimsy, echoing
construction of "stick built" walls in suburban
tract housing.
The genius of the Blue Maxx Wallsystem is
the combination of the solid strength and
permanence of steel reinforced concrete,
with the fabulous insulating capacity of dual
two and a half inch thick slabs of expanded
polystyrene foam in a system that is fast
cost efficient and virtually foolproof to
construct from the basement up!
|
