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Roof structure without wood?

 
John Valdes
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Does anyone have experience with or know about alternatives to the usual wood beams or truss structure for a roof?  I'm looking for alternatives to avoid mold food.  I don't want anything that would encourage the growth of fungi due to recovery from mold illness.  We are looking to build with something like rammed earth which won't grow mold, but I don't know how a roof structure would be built.  

♪ Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on, Love is just the way to live and die...♫

 
John C Daley
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Steel would work

John Daley Bendigo, Australia The Enemy of progress is the hope of a perfect plan
Benefits of rainfall collection https://permies.com/t/88043/benefits-rainfall-collection
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D Nikolls
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Steel or ferrocement.. beyond those, there are doubtless ways to do it with fibreglass or maybe some wood-free SIP options, but more exotic=more $$$...

'Theoretically this level of creeping Orwellian dynamics should ramp up our awareness, but what happens instead is that each alert becomes less and less effective because we're incredibly stupid.' - Jerry Holkins

 
Sebastian Köln
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I have never seen mold in the roof. Plenty in the floor, but never in the roof. Even with leaks in a damp climate.

So my guess would be that a (ventilated) wooden roof should be mold-free.

For an inorganic roof, Vaults are an option.
 
John Valdes
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Thank you all for the input, and I welcome any additional!
I'm adding these suggestions to my research bucket.  I thought about steel for a while, but I haven't looked at the cost.  I never thought about fiberglass.  
Over the weekend, I was looking at videos on natural buildings with earth block arches and also "super-adobe" (more info on that here -- https://www.calearth.org/tour), and it looks like you can do dome and arched roofs.  I might actually build a small dome shelter to get us through winter after we purchase land to build on.  It seems that it's a really quick, low tech, and low cost way to get a solid structure with thermal mass up.  Then I would plan and start building our main house where I'm more concerned about the roof structure.  

♪ Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on, Love is just the way to live and die...♫

 
D Nikolls
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John Valdes wrote:Thank you all for the input, and I welcome any additional!
I'm adding these suggestions to my research bucket.  I thought about steel for a while, but I haven't looked at the cost.  I never thought about fiberglass.  
Over the weekend, I was looking at videos on natural buildings with earth block arches and also "super-adobe" (more info on that here -- https://www.calearth.org/tour), and it looks like you can do dome and arched roofs.  I might actually build a small dome shelter to get us through winter after we purchase land to build on.  It seems that it's a really quick, low tech, and low cost way to get a solid structure with thermal mass up.  Then I would plan and start building our main house where I'm more concerned about the roof structure.  



If you don't have quite a lot of building experience, I would really suggest using the same method for the initial structure as you intend to use for the main home; there are always lessons to be learned, whether it ends up improving your skills and design, or convincing you that another method would be better!

'Theoretically this level of creeping Orwellian dynamics should ramp up our awareness, but what happens instead is that each alert becomes less and less effective because we're incredibly stupid.' - Jerry Holkins

 
D Nikolls
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John Valdes wrote:
I'm adding these suggestions to my research bucket.  I thought about steel for a while, but I haven't looked at the cost.  .  



New steel is a bit dear, but if you have access to a big city, try craigslist... I often see large pieces available at very tempting prices, in the nearest large city. Not much use to me when each way is 6+ hours and several hundred dollars for truck/trailer on the ferry.. but perhaps your access is better!

'Theoretically this level of creeping Orwellian dynamics should ramp up our awareness, but what happens instead is that each alert becomes less and less effective because we're incredibly stupid.' - Jerry Holkins

 
Sounds fishy. It smells fishy too. You say it's a tiny ad, but ...
montana community seeking 20 people who are gardeners or want to be gardeners
https://permies.com/t/359868/montana-community-seeking-people-gardeners
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