Jan. 13, 2000
It may not make sense, but houses built of styrofoam seem to hold up better in earthquakes.
The technology introduced back east 30 years ago for low cost housing is making a comeback in Utah - but for different reasons.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates reports from Heber City.
A big, expensive house in Heber City is 30 feet high - and yet there are no two-by-four wooden studs, no plywood siding, no bricks or blocks.
In this case, the walls are simply four inches of lightweight styrofoam with interconnected wire mesh on each side.
A typical four by eight foot sheet of styrofoam with the wire mesh weighs only 38 pounds. One person can pick it up.
Each piece of siding is stapled together. Corner walls are connected. Windows and doors are cut out. Then a concrete spray is applied on both sides.
Shane Coles / Lifetime Homes Inc.: "Your standard 2,500 square foot rambler can be put up in about a day, having a crew of four men."
Ironically, the technology was introduced 30 years ago for quick, inexpensive housing in the South. But when the houses later withstood the forces of Hurricane Hugo while other, more expensive buildings went down, engineers began looking at other applications.
Coles: "This one here is only a four foot span, and this wall will withstand over 140 pounds per square foot."
The 20-foot high Granite Mountain Reserve in California was built with the same technology. And when earthquakes hit in the early 1990's?
Coles: "The facility survived two earthquakes in a row-- a 6.4 and a 6.9, and it survived with zero effect at all-- no damage whatsoever!"
Once covered with concrete spray, the styrofoam/wire mesh becomes extremely strong. During an earthquake, the walls and corners apparently tend to move as one piece.
Ed Yeates, Eyewitness News, Heber City.
The manufacturers of ICS 3-D Panel Systems says this technology is currently being used on the following projects around the world:
- Commercial office bldgs.
- Upscale homes
- Manufacturing facilities
- Nursing homes
- Schools
- Fire stations
- Correctional facilities
- Low-cost housing projects
- Sound barrier walls
- Fire/Privacy partition walls
- Condominium developments
- Municipal structures
The building panels are comprised of:
- Modified expanded polystrene core (made from recycled steel)
- Two outer layers of 2" x 2" welded wire mesh
- Galvanized truss wires pierce core and are welded to the outer mesh layer
- Field-applied shotcrete
(Source: Lifetime Homes Construction, Inc. (801) 358-8820)
