ASMET monocoque building system

[SteveLeigh]

This is my first post on this forum. I am hoping that there are some people on this forum who have a genuine and deep interest in global eco issues. I have read your literature and studied your forum postings. Is this forum only interested in solutions based on existing UK traditional technology ?

It is impossible to adapt existing building technology to meet the urgent need for millions of low carbon homes worldwide. OK its needed to upgrade old UK homes, but it could be a waste of effort to keep on trying to adapt it for the buildings of the future.

I am here to give you the answer to all the global sustainable construction problems in one simply cost effective package, ASMET. I have posted extensively on Green Building Forum which I have been told is lower down in the technical pecking order than this forum. I do suspect that the majority of posts on this forum are not focused on the real global issues but only in the UK agenda. This is the inevitable conclusion drawn from the fact that I have made some unbelievable claims about sustainable construction on the Green Building Forum (which I have now discovered is connected with this forum) and no one who posts on this forum has picked up on the claims. Sustainability Forums are becoming increasingly important to get the global message out about new technology especially ASMET type technology which threatens established industry right down to its core. ASMET is a fully developed building system which solves all of the building envelope problems which have been discussed in great depth on this forum many many times.

ASMET is very simple and overcomes all the current problems and is easily monitored and can be mass produced to any design to a consistent standard. An easy comparison to make is to ask yourself how many components and different materials go into the many configurations of MMC building envelopes. Then take into account all the energy used and waste produced to manufacture thousands of materials and components and deliver them to site. Also consider the waste and energy produced in the factory, during construction, during the buildings life and maintenance. All resulting in one hell of an environmental mess. Now compare this with ASMET which is just one super strong everlasting material for the building envelope with less than 1% waste during manufacture and construction resulting in a zero maintenance building envelope. ASMET is made of an impervious everlasting material which can be reused and recycled. It is non-toxic, low embodied energy and exceeds all the current gold standards set out by the AECB.

Apologies if I come across a little arrogant but I'm just trying to inject some sense of urgency into the sustainable community. This forum wasn't important five years ago. It will become increasingly important because the brains on this forum are the kind of brains which will save this planet from self destruction in the future. Resource conservation and fresh water collection and storage are the main issues and it can’t be just about the UK. The fact is if we carry on using the earths resources at the current rate we will need a few more planets.

Now I've said my piece may I give you figures on ASMET.

ASMET wall starting from outside :- 7mm RoofKrete, 70mm Polyfoam, 14mm ASMET, 200mm glass mineral wool, 45.5 polyfoam, 9.5mm plaster board. Total wall thickness 346mm. This gives a wall U-value of 0.10 W/m²K. This figure would take into account thermal bridges and air movement through insulation.

The real figure could be substantially lower because there will be no air movement through the insulation on an ASMET house and thermal bridges will be only about 0.3% of wall surface area and less than 0.1% of a roof surface area.

Thermal bridges and leaks in and around window frames can be eliminated because toughened glass sealed units can be be fixed directly to the ASMET structure, without the need for window frames, costs saved could be put to triple glazing. Toughened glass can be specially made into stepped sealed units which will be fixed on gaskets and trimmed.

ASMET is expected to be almost 100% airtight with a specially designed MVHR system fitted as standard. This will give superior and fully controllable indoor air quality.

The plan is to develop a new higher standard for a building envelope which will be built to a strict specification by factory trained personnel only.

Summer overheating can be tackled by various means. Basements are one method, dig a hole pop in an ASMET house and back-fill around it, job done! Harvested rainwater pumped around an ASMET structure could be another way. Whatever your imagination can design, ASMET is versatile enough to accommodate it.

ASMET is going through national building regulation assessment at present. Three of the Devon local authorities are involved in this process.

This forum needs visionaries who understand what building for the FUTURE really means? Not dinosaurs who are persistently trying to crank-up obsolete technology.

To wet your appetite I have put some amateur (some mobile phone) video footage on youtube of a 15 tonne ASMET structure being rocked on a centre pivot which displays the structural integrity of the system. 

The links are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT9dqEoBqns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VX2jhxxzDU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9A4hhhqgtA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOYzOP06nig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwFFSEyAh-g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcmPhWLeBek

Apologies if the resolution is a little poor.  If you'd like to see more I'm taking a full size piece of ASMET to the Sustainable event at Weald and Downland Museum on 20th May. I look forward to discussing ASMET with any interested person on the day.  I also have info sheets on ASMET please contact me at info@sustainconstruction.com.

The time is now fast running out for a paradigm shift in global sustainable construction!

[Mark Siddall]

For more background/discussion on ASMET see: -
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=174&page=1#Item_0

(Seems pointless to start the discussions from scratch all over again. Furthermore it seems that Steven forgot to mention that he has a vested interest in the products success.)

Mark

[SteveLeigh]

What we are doing now is not beneficial for future generations. We are all here trying to improve it. Should the world be deprived of the answer to the problem you are all looking for. 

Steve

[Mark Siddall]

Steve,
In the first instance I was merely seeking to note that the forum has rules that all contributors try to observe so as to ensure that the integrity of the site is maintained. One of these rule relates to advertisement and therefore declarations of interest. For details see http://www.aecb.net/forum/index.php?topic=9.0

As for the product ASMET. Having followed the other threads on the Green Building Forum, personally I have to say that I believe the technology has potential. However, as you are only to aware, it has yet to be untested in the real world i.e. a fully functional building and many refinements will be required before a complete building system can be successfully launched. Be rest assured that I appreciate that you are working very hard to turn the concept into a reality and certainly wish you all the best in this endeavor.

Mark

[SteveLeigh]

Mark

If you can show me a genuinely sustainable building system which can be mass produced to absolutely any design for less cost than present MMCs. I will be the first to have a vested interest in it.

I have looked at all the MMC candidates which propose to offer a mass produced solution and they all have major flaws compared to ASMET. If I could find anything better I would support it !!

Mark, I am sorry if I appear ranting but wouldn’t you be if you could clearly see a way to save this world for the benefit of our children and nobody would listen!

ASMET is not yet a commercial operation. It is under-going all the necessary testing for building regs etc.

Anybody not involved with it could say it is still a concept but I have been on the training course and therefore can see the tremendous benefits for future generations.

I have come into this industry from a senior IT position. I am here because IT cannot save the planet. Sustainable Construction can save the planet if it is taken seriously enough at this early stage.

An ultra ecological construction method which is easily taught and is adaptable to any design and can be mass produced worldwide within the next five years has got to be the only realistic solution.

I have no interest in the UK agenda of timber framed houses infested with ‘energy saving’ products when the actual building envelope is so decrepit. So when I come across a building envelope like ASMET which is so advanced that it makes everything else obsolete. What am I to do?

Yes, I have a vested interest in saving the planet. I'm pushing a technology which can be rapidly duplicated with no design limitations. ASMET is beneficial to our future. The owner of this technology has the biggest responsibility to ensure non-beneficial vested interest (financial) from large multi-nationals do not prevent ASMET from being mass produced.

These are the facts:-

Present construction site waste is about 20%. ASMET construction site waste AND production waste is less than 1%

ASMET is built from a permanent material which does not need protection with poisonous chemicals.

ASMET does not need an expanding energy hungry industry producing 1000's of the latest construction components and breathable vapour barriers etc

ASMET does not need a 40 tonne concrete and masonry foundation, a vast concrete underground unseen infrastructure. When greenfield land is developed it is gone forever. The whole, soon to be expanded, greenfield developing business is a brutal rape of the landscape. Instead ASMET can gently sit on pasture land and can be easily removed at a later date. The land can then be returned to pasture because breaking of the ground is not necessary to site an ASMET house, thus recycling even the very ground. The removed ASMET house can then be re-sited, re-sized and re-used in or on other buildings or structures. This is the ultimate recycling.

ASMET can achieve AECB gold standards and above at substantially less cost than any present system.

ASMET is just simple and obvious. It is a 100% airtight building envelope that opens a massive opportunity for the UK.

In the IT industry we have to survive by Continuous Professional Development we cannot ignore any advance or we cease to be useful. I want to bring this ethic to the construction industry. I hope some of the professional people will support me in this mission. ASMET will move forward irrespective of what I say to other AECB members. I just thought I had a responsibility to inform the AECB members. It seems that these forums are full of people who are doing their best with what they have got. However, to approach the global situation effectively we need ASMET. Anything else is just ‘draft-proofing’ the Titanic.

I have got two new pdf ASMET docs of the 0.10 W/m2K wall and roof connection(eaves) if anybody is interested.  Please note that Knauf, who carried out the calculations, allowed the normal air movement and thermal bridging allowance to get the figure. Because ASMET is airtight with tiny thermal bridging then this figure can be lowered.  Which means you can have low cost insulation and bring the overall build price nearer to social hosing cost and the quality of the building at PH standard.  A MVHR is being designed at the moment and this will be standard for an ASMET house.  So the ASMET standard will be set and the architects can have any design/shape using these standards.  This releases architects to design beautiful buildings which sit on the ground, semi-basement, roof gardens, roof swimming pools etc. They will not have to incorporate all the current solutions which impede design to resolve all the horrible things which can happen to a building envelope.  They can be assured they have a good quality assured standard every time constructed by fully trained personnel. 

This means everybody can have a warm healthy house which is genuinely sustainable.

Steve

[Nick Grant]

Steve

As your posts are a rant promoting a commercial system and making unsubstantiated claims they can be removed under forum rules which will happen if we get any complaints.

Meanwhile it seems some of us are willing to chat.

Unfortunately you make it clear that  anyone not completely convinced by your humanity saving solution must be a dinosaur. I get about 20 emails a year from inventors making such fantastic claims and have not seen any of these reach market. If yours is the exception then it will help your case if you don't come across sounding uncannily like all the others do.

One theory is that these ideas are all brilliant but everyone is so set in their ways or so entrenched with vested interests in the old order that they cannot see the light or are even actively involved in conspiracies to prevent progress.

So it would be good if you could radically  edit your posts removing all the emotive and patronising comments about, let's face it, all building professionals except those sold on ASMET.

Feel free to discuss the  generic concept of a monocoque construction which is not new. However to echo Mark's comment, hard evidence is more convincing than speculation.

In one sentence it would be good to simply tell us what 'ASMET' is. You use the same word to describe a material that is one layer of the construction but also to describe the whole system. I'd be curious to hear (briefly) how it improves on the foam and ferro cement/GRC domes of the 70s before the dinosaurs get all nostalgic.

Nick

[SteveLeigh]

Nick

ASMET is a complete building system which is simply 14mm thick RoofKrete material which is factory produced into structural panels with 200mm x 14mm beams at 400 mm centres. These are then seamlessly knitted together on site into a monocoque structure of any shape or design. It is high spec (exceeding AECB gold) and low cost for social housing and every claim can be substantiated.

Please let me explain the reason I am all fired up.

I was present at an open day last November when ASMET was presented to thirty architects (including senior architects from Atkins Global)

They went over the structure with a fine-toothed comb and not one architect could dispute any one of the ASMET claims.  I was witnessing top industry professionals proclaiming a system which is the solution to an impending worldwide crisis. Sustainable building was discussed in great detail on the day. One leading architect who came in aggressively waving the sheet of ASMET claims saying that ASMET cannot possibly be true was totally convinced within an hour. Everybody is now waiting for building regulation system approval.

Steve