I’ve been hearing a lot of talk for the last 25 years about “smart materials’ and nanotechnology. Some time in the next fifty years I expect to see self healing vapor barriers with one way permeability. They might be installed as a separate membrane, the way we do it today, or they might be installed as part of the insulation, just spray the cavity full of high tech gunk and the vapor barrier components migrate to the inner and outer surfaces and assemble themselves into complete vapor barriers.
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I think modulars will be build overseas and brought here on huge container ships. Rail cars will transport to the distribution point and crews will install.
Jon Blakemore
No need to wait fifty years for either of these. the VB is in the laBbs being refined now. There are modular kits being shipped regularly from Sweden.I expect withing fifteen years to see structures that can be "grown" in place. Giver another five years and they will be organicly, genetically refined to where they can heal or repair themselves.LOL, the hardest part for the genetic engineers will be to make sure this organism does not view humans as foreign bodies or parasites, or worse yet, as food.
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"as food"....
oh the ideas....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
You writing a science fiction novel now?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
reality thing....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
>>>"There are modular kits being shipped regularly from Sweden.""Kits". Are these panelized or boxes like traditional modulars? Do you have any links.I'm waiting for 4Lorn to find this thread. I'm sure he will have a lot to say <g>
Jon Blakemore
No links. Read an article three or four years ago. modular boxes and panels both. I also did some research on the subject back in '95 or '96 and saw rthey were building them there then, bnut just starting to explore ourt market back then.The japanese also have this type system down to a T and display their boxes at exposiitions
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BIG BLOCK.
I can see modular wall section's. Custom made on site.. Similar to styrofoam and airiated concrete but larger and Smarter.With materials that don't need any finish inside or out. A "Smart Lego type" of big block.
YCF
I don't know what the advances will be, but "necessity is the Mother of invention", and with two driving forces - 1, our aging Baby Boomers and 2, other countries increasimg their middle class population, thus increasing their demands for a larger share of the world's natural resorces, we will see all sorts of age-friendly innovations and smaller living units. I'm wondering what the future market will be for all the McMansions we're currently building.
Thinking back to the movie, "The Graduate", I'd tell Benjamin not to forget "plastics" but to also think "Geriatric".
oldfred
With dwindling natural resources and soaring energy costs, I expect there will be a big industry in tearing down McMansions and recycling the materials for smaller house construction. Probably lots of bungalows for the baby boomer geezers (who can't imagine themselves in nursing homes).
"a big industry in tearing down McMansions and recycling the materials for smaller house construction"unfortunately, from the ones that I have looked at the materials are so second rate to start with the only second use I think their building materials will be able to be used for is landfill.Lots of small apartment buildings in builtup areas are just big homes from the last major 'excess boom' (~1910 - 1929) chopped up into rentals. I suppose the McMansions could be done the same, but they are all located so far from business, and so far apart, that travel costs may be too much to be of much use to the lower classes to make much use of.Maybe there will be communities of poor, living in these things 12 to a house, and bus service carrying them to and from where ever the work is.Darkest scenario is a real loss of labor type work in this country (depression) and all of the owners of those big houses will get forclosed and the buildings just get bulldozed into a big pile (very dark thoughts).Brightest scenario: technology to convert carbon based materials into fuel (synthetic fuel was invented decades ago, but still not cost effective to be used in any volume, though the Germans did a lot of it at the end of WWII (no oil, but lots of coal that could be turned into fuel if cost is no object). Was reading about a guy in the states who had made a real breakthrough with this and was working with a major food producing company, turning their waste chicken parts into heating fuel for the plant and pens. Very cool stuff.Imagine if all of our landfills, in every community (soon, a very great many of them will be closed due to capacity and pollution issues) could be "mined" for the stored carbon-based materials in them (almost all of their contents are carbon based), and produce fuel for heating, and propelling us into the 22nd century...Norm "happy since I got my own personal hover car and we all started wearing those color-coordinated jump suits" Kerr
Unfortunately we may have runaway greenhouse effect (think Venus) long before we run out of fossil fuels.... Hmm, houses that extract CO2 from the household air and bury it in a hole under the house.... That's no more fantastic than any of the other ideas kicking around to prevent the coming CO2 train wreck.... Or we could just drive smaller cars and live in smaller houses....I know, move this to the Tavern....
Acme dehydrated homes. Just add water and presto, instant house.
I think the best advances could be made in man made structural members. If they can just make everything rot-proof and mold-proof we could forget about flashing techniques and building maintenance.
I guess the key here would be the glue they use in osb type systems
"I expect to see self healing vapor barriers..."
I believe GE already has "self-healing" resins/plastics. Not sure if they are in porduction yet, saw it in a trade magazine.
Further development of cordless technology. Full size tools with several hours' run time.
I was reading a few months back about small ultra-efficient natural gas boilers/generators that produce electricity when they are not producing heat.
They are supposedly significantly more efficient on net than getting power off the grid. The main problem with the centralized system being that so much energy is lost in transmission.
Can't help but love the idea of decentralized energy production. Not sure it would scale well economically (more gas demand?), but it would be fun to tell the monopoly to shove it...
Cogenerators and fuel cells WILL be a part of our lives soon enough
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