Hello from New York

[Gary in New York]

Thank you to the Admins for letting me post to your group. I am building a house in New York with Wienerberger's Climamur 36 (365mm thick) Porotherm insulated clay blocks. So far as I know, this will be the first house in North America built with these. The person helping me that has built many projects with Porotherm is French, and has worked mainly in Panama. Many things that he assumed were common and would be easily gotten in the US, it turns out don't exist here. Yesterday my wife was in a shouting match with our architect (over the phone thank goodness) and I think that if I were better informed of the issues with building a monolithic envelope house from these blocks we'd be much better off. Also, I am NOT a builder, just a retired photo studio manager who did many complicated renovations, but nothing involving the issues confronted when constructing a home. And because all the builders in my rural area are more than busy enough building the stick frame homes they are familiar with, I am left doing this by myself, hiring subs and helpers as I can. I don't know how it is in England, but it seems no one in America wants to work, or at least no one is available. Well, that's my introduction. I'll post my questions to the forums where clay block construction has been mentioned. 

[Thorfun]

Welcome! Sounds like a challenge and I look forward to reading about your journey. 

[Ferdinand]

Welcome.

 

This sounds .. er .. interesting 🙂.

[Kelvin]

Welcome. You like a challenge! Good for you. 
 

Things are similar here in the UK. Everyone is busy and booked up based on my experience so far! 

[MikeSharp01]

Welcome to THE forum for people like us!

[Iceverge]

Welcome, what stage of the build are you at? 

 

Similar situation in Ireland. Labour is tight in construction. 

 

There's plenty of jobs in industry that are far safer, better paid etc. 

[SteamyTea]

Welcome.

 

My experience of working in the USA was you can easily buy a truck full of something, but not a single tin of it.

 

Is there a reason for using Porotherm?

[Gary in New York]

Porotherm because it's what my wife wants. Besides that, for the attributes they claim. We've lived for 20+ years in a 170 year old wood farmhouse that always needs painting or rotting wood replaced. The old clapboard no longer holds paint well- generally, too much maintenance with the wood. My wife's relatives have self built homes in Germany with the Climamur blocks. They're comfortable, require minimal heating and cooling, regulate humidity well, and presumably will last 100+ years. So I said I'd give it a go. Yesterday we received our first delivery of the blocks and today will start putting up walls for the garage. A tremendous thunder and lightening storm passed by earlier this morning, just before sunrise. Not sure if that's a good omen or bad.

 

 

49 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Is there a reason for using Porotherm?

 

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, Gary in New York said:

tremendous thunder and lightening storm passed by earlier this morning, just before sunrise. Not sure if that's a good omen or bad.

Not a snow storm, so good.

[Ferdinand]

38 minutes ago, Gary in New York said:

Porotherm because it's what my wife wants. Besides that, for the attributes they claim. We've lived for 20+ years in a 170 year old wood farmhouse that always needs painting or rotting wood replaced. The old clapboard no longer holds paint well- generally, too much maintenance with the wood. My wife's relatives have self built homes in Germany with the Climamur blocks. They're comfortable, require minimal heating and cooling, regulate humidity well, and presumably will last 100+ years. So I said I'd give it a go. Yesterday we received our first delivery of the blocks and today will start putting up walls for the garage. A tremendous thunder and lightening storm passed by earlier this morning, just before sunrise. Not sure if that's a good omen or bad.

 

 

 

 

You might enjoy the online vids I'm subscribed to by a channel called "Black Forest Family" - who are an American couple living in Germany, who have self-built there - and do a lot of observations about culture etc from a fairly neutral viewpoint.

 

Here:https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackForestFamily/featured

Would I be correct to think that in NY dealing with variable climate is one of your key challenges ?

 

(I recall listening to an historic Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, where he discussed what changed in NY with the widespread introduction of air conditioning.) 

 

F