Lets say I was building a house, and money was no object. Could I get half inch thick sheet metal to put between the outer wooden layer and the inner sheet rock?
Would there be any health risks to living in a home encased in Metal? Of course the design would be sound the structure sturdy, and for all intents and purposes look completely normal to anyone looking at the outside or inside.
What would it do to the electrical systems or magnetic fields inside?
Some may be wondering why the hell would one want a house with a metal skeleton, but actually I was thinking for purposes of insulation and structure plus a little artistic lattitude from the norm.
I just spent an ungodly amount of money building a granite shed/structure in the back yard. One of the masons said granite is a great insulator and that got me thinking what about metal?
We have a two story modern Log-Home with a granite foundation coverings and granite accents around the sides, the house is pretty good on heat with two woodstoves a fireplace and oil heating. We can keep the temp pretty constent with the wood stove in the family room and the regular heating… But I am searching for the perfect insulator to keep the place cool in the summer and cozy in the winter. With the ten inches of snow we got here in CT last night I can already tell this is going to be a bad winter.
So anyone know the dope on metal structures/casing on a house or building…?
A minor terminology quibble but anything over quarter inch thickness is plate, not sheet metal.
Metal is a poor insulator and the thick plates in the walls will make an enourmous thermal mass. Since the metal is sandwiched in the exterior walls the dynamics will depends on how much insulation value you get from the external sheathing.
Building a house with a metal outside skin is another proposition but it requires a good insulation layer inside otherwise you’ll bake from reradiated heat during the day and freeze at night.
Metal is a brilliant conductor of heat within its mass – I don’t think it’s terribly conductive when sandwiched with air, but I don’t think it’s very insulating, either.
The perfect insulator is vacuum; have you considered sealing and evacuating the space inside your walls? No?
Other good insulators are those that trap air and prevent it from moving. Furry, fibrous materials like…fiberglass. Gee, I wonder why they don’t use that?
Seriously, good insulators don’t work because they’re thick; they work because the material itself inhibits the flow of heat, and especially of warm air. A nylon windbreaker under my motorcycle jacket keeps me warmer than the fancy insulating liner that came with it. That’s why granite works (if it does; I only have your mason’s word for it).
Celyn good point! I did not factor in escaping from a fire…Hmmmm - it still wouldn’t stop me from attempting it on a small scale first.
Toad nice to see someone else had the idea…How’s your house coming along, are you running into mountainous costs or is it pretty economical…or just economical in the long run?
My wife joked with me when I first brought the idea up, saying “Wanna keep the aliens from reading your thoughts huh?”
hahaha no no … I informed her I am just on the search for great insulation. Luckily when I wanted to build an underground room with a huge skylight ceiling she didn’t scoff but asked when we could start.
As insulation goes what better way than to utilize the earth itself. We have a family room 17 X 17 on the side of the house that was built mostly underground, and has a sectioned opaq plexi-lass ceiling. We do lose a lot of heat out of the ceiling but that is correctable with extra plexi in the winter. It was only put in last year so this winter is the trial. Oddly enough the permit for the work was pretty easy to get as the structure only comes out of the ground 45 inches at its tallest place. And underground 12 feet. Built with a Kiva design the cost was not bad considering what we got when we were done. Plus Mrs.Phlosphr and I dug it with a borrowed John Deer digger
If what you want is thermal insulation, a layer of steel or another metal won’t help. See this table for the thermal conductivity of a range of materials. According to these numbers a steel layer must be about 250-360 times as thick as a brick layer to have the same heat-insulation property. (More numbers at this NIST site.)
The best insulators seem to be materials which contain air (a very poor conductor of heat) in pockets small enough to avoid convection. For a building material with a conductivity of 0.05 W/m K you can apparently choose between polystyrene foam, straw and ice cream powder (?).
No unfortunately, I can’t do that in my home as it is a mainly log house… But the ceiling in the bedrooms and here in the office have insulation. Maybe instead of metal we should continue with the granite. Check this house out. It is very similar in design to my house but mine has darker granite and a lot more of it. It is a great insulator
You are also essentially creating a Faraday cage. This won’t have much of an effect on the electronics inside your house, but it will tend to block anything from outside getting in and anything from inside getting out. In practical terms, it means you aren’t going to get jack for radio reception (TV too if you are using an antenna instead of cable).
The sheer mass of the metal will also shield you a little bit from cosmic radiation.
The thermal properties of metal have already been discussed so I won’t bother repeating it.
A little off the subject, but the snow would be a far better insulator, due to all the trapped air as mentioned earlier. As you merrily dig away at the driveway just throw it against the house. Not only a good source of evercise but should reduce that pesky heat bill every month. Not only is snow all natural and biodegradable but it removes itself just in time for spring.
Yep. One reason why I’m planning on running Cat-5 cable instead of using a wireless home computer network.
We’re still in the planning stages–but as far as insulation goes, we’re planning on using straw bales. So we’ll have some thick-ass walls that are between R-30 and R-50. Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs; foam extruded between two sheets of OSB or plywood) for the roof.
And yeah, the initial siding costs might be rough … but the life-cycle costs are good (no painting, no re-roofing every 15 years…).
Instead of the thicker plate, could one make thin, hollow walls that are airtight, and then reduce the amount of air inside them?
I dont know if it would be economically feasible to actually create honeycomb sheets with connecting holes, then vacuum the air out after sandwiching it inside sheets of thin metal. I suppose it would depend on the cost of a decent vacuum rental.
These concerns are all kind of silly. It’s like saying, “Build a house out of two-by-four lumber? You’re nuts! You’re living in a damned tinderbox! And what happens if the wood gets wet?”
There are lots and lots of metal buildings around. Hasn’t anyone here ever seen a warehouse, for goodness’ sake?
