Author Topic: 'My next home must be fireproof': Why more Angelenos are looking to build 'SuperAdobes'  (Read 1363 times)

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Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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How backward is California? It wants to build homes like the Indians built a thousand years ago.

'My next home must be fireproof': Why more Angelenos are looking to build 'SuperAdobes'
Jessie Schiewe
Thu, February 20, 2025


HESPERIA, CALIFORNIA - FEB. 1, 2025: Elliott Hostetter, who lost his home in Altadena to the Los Angeles Fires, walks out of a SuperAdobe home during a tour at the CalEarth institute. (William Liang / For the Times)
Elliott Hostetter, who lost his Altadena home to the Eaton fire, steps out of a SuperAdobe during a tour at the CalEarth Institute. Such structures are capable of withstanding a colossal natural disaster. (William Liang / For The Times)
At the southern edge of the Mojave Desert on an unusually warm Saturday in February, dozens of people mill throughout the living space of a 2,300-square-foot three-bed, two-bath house with a connected two-car garage.

A couple gliding past the open kitchen marvel at the room’s “good natural lighting.” In the hallway outside the expansive main bedroom, a tall bearded man compares the space to a “luxury Airbnb experience,” while two grade-school-age boys play with a light switch on the wall, flicking the ceiling fan on and off.

“I’ve never seen a house like this,” one of them says, “but I like the shape of it.”

The house has central heating and air conditioning, a natural gas fireplace and ample closet space. And yet, modern amenities aside, this is no normal home.

Instead of resembling a box, the structure consists of a sequence of vaulted domes nestled together, like a lost cottage straight out of a storybook. The walls are curved and the ceilings are tall and arched. And the entire building is constructed with just a few materials: soil, water, sandbags, barbed wire, plaster and a bit of cement.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/next-home-must-fireproof-why-110015067.html
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Offline Smokin Joe

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Mud huts for everyone!
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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

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Online roamer_1

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Guess what? That ain't fireproof either. You let the woods get all up close and let the ladder fuels stack up, that mud hut will get fired and cracked and fall to pieces in the kiln-like temps a forest fire produces. That'll be a pile of hard-fired rubble

Offline GrouchoTex

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Guess what? That ain't fireproof either. You let the woods get all up close and let the ladder fuels stack up, that mud hut will get fired and cracked and fall to pieces in the kiln-like temps a forest fire produces. That'll be a pile of hard-fired rubble

One issue I saw with older Southwest homes, mostly in California, was the weight of the red clay tile roofs.
If there was a fire in the interior, the roofs could collapse and injure or kill the fire fighters inside.
If the fire was bad enough, they would let it burn and put out the remnants after the roof collapsed.
Now, I hear, they use plastic or lighter materials that look like those old clay Spanish tiles.

Offline libertybele

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Perhaps building some type of self-containing structure underground? That would be extremely expensive, but the elitist would be able to afford it. 

Online DB

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Someone might want to tell them about these things called earthquakes...

Online Wingnut

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If my mud hut collapses, as long as some DEi hire who "looks like me" comes to my rescue, I'm okay.
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Offline DefiantMassRINO

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Is adbobe drought-resistant, earthquake resistant, mudslide resistant, and antifa-resistant?
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Online DB

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If my mud hut collapses, as long as some DEi hire who "looks like me" comes to my rescue, I'm okay.

You are in major trouble then...

Online DB

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Is adbobe drought-resistant, earthquake resistant, mudslide resistant, and antifa-resistant?

Well... If there's a mud slide you don't need to be dug up...

Online Wingnut

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You are in major trouble then...

Karen Bass and her army of lesbians tell me it is okay.
You don’t become cooler with age but you do care progressively less about being cool, which is the only true way to actually be cool.

Online roamer_1

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One issue I saw with older Southwest homes, mostly in California, was the weight of the red clay tile roofs.
If there was a fire in the interior, the roofs could collapse and injure or kill the fire fighters inside.
If the fire was bad enough, they would let it burn and put out the remnants after the roof collapsed.
Now, I hear, they use plastic or lighter materials that look like those old clay Spanish tiles.

Most everything up in here is steel roofs Mostly steel outbuildings too. A good many homes are either steel sided or concrete sided. Some of that is snow load and being able to withstand deep snow for a long time... But it's about fire too.

Online DB

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Karen Bass and her army of lesbians tell me it is okay.

Come on man... If 7 dudes that looked just like you showed up to rescue you'd freak out.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Come on man... If 7 dudes that looked just like you showed up to rescue you'd freak out.
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How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis