Synthesis of natural building and modularity?

One of the things that has impressed me deeply since I entered the trades a year ago, that wasn't as obvious as the aesthetic/health/FIYable* differences between "conventional" and so-called "natural" building materials/techniques, is the modularity of the former.

*fabricate it yourself

The way everything in the big box hardware store is designed more or less to fit together into the same "grid" is quietly brilliant. On top of the general ease of combining ingredients, it also provides the flexibility to allow structures to keep being built or renovated to codes and other standards that are continually updated.

Today I was picturing in my mind's eye some kind of permie-paradise house where all the walls and built-ins are artisinally sculpted out of locally-sourced logs or cob or whatever, with a green roof and earthen floors, mycelial insulation, etc. etc. Then this pleasant scene was disrupted when I had a thought like "what if I want to add an outlet there?" or "What if I need to reroute a plumbing line over here?"

These thoughts might send a dreamer with less fortitude running to Big Construction Supply on the day of his breaking ground, but I am resolved to resist that temptation. I know that to successfully resist it, I will have to build modularity into whatever dream home I one day assemble, so that the back-of-house of my house can still play nicely with the common products (pipes, wires, electrical boxes, lumber, and other materials possibly even including sheet goods) inevitably required to make it function as a comfortable (and in most places, legal) 21st century home.

And then it occurred to me: many of you here have made natural buildings for yourselves; how have you addressed this issue?

I have found that the apparent "modularity" isn't nearly as effective when one tries to change or upgrade if those changes weren't at least allowed for.

Example: Whoever wired our house was an amateur. Electric baseboard heaters need both sides of a set of paired breakers. They got confused and the heaters go to two different sets of paired breakers. The house is completely finished with plasterboard. I've been told that to try to trace the wires and be sure we're transferring the wires accurately to the correct breakers would be difficult to impossible without cutting massive holes in the plasterboard. It's easier to heat with wood...

That said, the consistency of things like electrical boxes *is* an asset and we've made use of that many time.

Hubby says, "the wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!"

I'm a homeowner, and I've been in construction.
My house is about 100 years old .
It contains many different "standards", including some I installed and became obsolete before they were ever used...

For electrical  flexibility nothing beats updated circuit protection and 10 gauge extension cords.
It looks terrible, but it will put that "outlet " where you need it.

Basements and attics as accessible utility chases can be hard to beat.
I hate  the look and feel of commercial dropped ceilings, but they make retrofits trivial compared to most other systems.

If I had the bandwidth I'd want to try a chair rail that doubles as a utility chase.

William Bronson wrote:
If I had the bandwidth I'd want to try a chair rail that doubles as a utility chase.

That's a great idea! Not only does it hide the wires (whilst potentially keeping them servicable), it puts the sockets and switches at an accessible height too. I suspect it doesn't meet standards though in the UK, because drops need to come vertically down and up (I think).

I'm tempted to suggest a relative 'scales of permanence' rubric for building design could help answer this and adapt natural/custom approaches where (most) appropriate. So, which parts do you want/need to be mostly stable and fixed? Foundation, exterior walls, utility service, access etc. And then, which parts could you make more flexible and modular? Interior walls, furnishing, appliances, light/sound, HVAC, power supply/storage (home microgrid?). Strike a balance there and you should be in good shape.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

Just a quick note to Jay Angler about those baseboard heaters. If I'm understanding correctly, the solution to the issue you describe should be as simple as figuring out which breakers are carrying their load and then swapping the wires to the appropriate breaker. To figure out which breakers to deal with, all you need is a friend and a hot stick a.k.a. tick tester a.k.a. voltage sniffer. Unscrew the cover of the baseboard heater to where you can see the wires feeding it. Have your friend hold the voltage sniffer up to one of the hot wires while you flip breakers. When the sniffer stops reporting any voltage, you have found one of the breakers. Note it, turn it back on, and proceed until you've found the other breaker. No destruction of your walls needed.

Ned Harr wrote:"what if I want to add an outlet there?" or "What if I need to reroute a plumbing line over here?"

I'm not seeing any problem in such a case and would not label it as a modularity issue. If you built from cob, masonry, you just chase the wall for additional electrical line. Extending plumbing would be more difficult, but at the same time it's not a common modification: to convert a room into a kitchen (a second one?) or a bathroom (another one?) in a well designed custom home. Building an extension would follow the same techniques as in the extended building.

Ned Harr wrote:many of you here have made natural buildings for yourselves; how have you addressed this issue?

First of all big boxes store usually have the lowest quality products. If you build a natural house you have to look somewhere else. These places usually want way too much money for some products that they sell, because of a market niche or catering to industrial customers, so I just made everything custom and it was still cheaper. Besides that I enjoy designing and fabricating things.

When you mentioned modularity I was thinking about prefab panels, made from cob or light clay (available in Europe).

I'm with Jay Angler on the so-called modularity of modern building being a theory rather than a reality.

I despise renovations on modern construction because of the differing standards, total crap quality of the materials, and lack of forethought in the design.

I am working on an oddly sized exterior door today. Because the bottom of the door has plastic "weatherproofing" strips that have disintegrated, allowing driving rain to enter at the bottom doorframe and soak the subflooring, which is basically made out of compressed sawdust.  Each of the hinge plates has 2 or 3 different types of screws, including those square drive ones  that the usage of are basically a symptom of mental illness.  I'd replace the bottom with a slide on "universal" one, but the door is 1 inch too long to fit it, so outcomes the Dremel.

Give me original, craftsman made, natural buildings every time.

And code? That's a joke. Code is simply an excuse to drive employment in the state licensed contractor market and make people unable/unwilling to DIY. People unable to make their own shelter with the help of local community are simply serfs dependent on the approval of local tyrants.  These bureaucratic code  worshipers stifle innovation, drive up costs,  and ensure the use of ecologically inappropriate non-local building  materials and methods.  Don't even get me started on the increased cancer and other health problems caused by the manufacture, use, and disposal of modern "modular" construction products.

I think Ned’s post raises an important issue—could more natural wall assemblies be more future-flexible?

With few exceptions, most buildings—whether made of conventional or “more natural” materials--have foundations, roofs, windows, doors, plumbing, electrical, and a heating, cooling, and ventilation system of some sort (ranging from very complicated to very simple).

When I think of flexibility, modular wall assembly features could play a role.  Standard sizes of a wall panel (think Legos) can be arranged in a sort of plug-and-play fashion to create permanent structures, and with some foresight these buildings could more easily be expanded using the same kind of modular wall panels.  

Wall panels made of modern conventional building materials like OSB or plywood sheathing, wood or metal studs, and fiberglass, foam in spray or board form, or rockwool insulation are already available.  Some have chases routed into them to facilitate electrical or plumbing.

But these wall assemblies could also be made with more natural materials like straw or hemp wool insulation combined with wood 2x and plywood for structure.  Pre-fabricated panelized straw bale wall systems are already well-developed in Europe (research ModCel or Ecococon), and similar systems are emerging in N. America. These are factory built walls transported to a job site, craned into position, roofed, wired, and plumbed in just days.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of efforts to create modular wall assemblies using other more natural insulations like hemp wool or blown-in-straw instead to replace fiberglass or foam.

Future-flexibility also involves the careful design of structures to anticipate future changes in terms of space additions, or upgrading electrical or plumbing.  As mentioned by others on this thread, access through open attics and/or crawlspaces reduces demolition and disruption, as would chair rail or baseboard chases. Carefully placing a chase or conduits in a slab or under flooring helps, too.

I sometimes worked on projects where homeowners wanted or needed to start small (e.g. 900 sq. ft) but planned to add conditioned space as their family grew, as they could afford, or as time allowed.  We placed suitable attachment points for roof ledgers in straw bale gable walls before we plastered them, and built porches with full-sized footings so when they were enclosed the footings could handle the wall weight.  We kept electrical away from the space below a window that might one day become a doorway into an addition, and tried to keep most plumbing and electrical in more accessible partition walls.  

Jeff’s problem with replacing a door seems to have a few causes—poor quality materials may be one, but poor original installation (lack of a sill pan), and poor building design (placing a doorway on a wall that receives wind-driven rain) may also play a role here. Relatively inexpensive vinyl sill pans prevent water from leaking under a doorway have replaced site-formed lead or metal sill pans, and weather exposed walls with doorways benefit from larger roof overhangs.

I can’t agree with Jeff that building codes are a joke, or about why they exist. Yes, the building codes can be frustrating and confusing. And there’s no question in my mind that the modern building material industry is behind writing most of the model codes (International Residential Code and International Building Code, to name a few applicable in the United States) that various building authorities adopt, and that they almost certainly have a thumb on the scale during code review and approval hearings.

But we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to building codes.

Properly understood, building codes represent the minimum legally required standard to which structures can be built. Codes have changed over time as new materials, construction methods, and our understanding of building science has changed. For a brief history of how and why building codes developed see Glenn Mathewson’s article in Fine Homebuilding Magazine, July 2023. https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2023/07/19/a-history-of-u-s-building-codes

Builders—whether DIY homeowners or contractors--are not in any way prevented from exceeding the building code when it comes to using higher quality materials, employing more labor-intensive methods in construction, or aiming for improved building performance, longevity, or occupant health.  When they do so—as they usually do when building an energy efficient straw bale, straw-clay, hemp-crete, or any other code-level mostly natural material structure—they are probably exceeding the building code’s minimum requirements in many ways.  

Members of the California Straw Building Association, along with others, have volunteered thousands of hours to the effort of producing model building codes for straw bale, light-straw-clay, and cob (monolithic adobe) construction, and had a hand in writing the hempcrete and Tiny House building codes.  Each code took years of effort to write and pass through the code approval process so they’d be available for builders and DIY homeowners alike. They are in the IRC as appendices: AS (Strawbale Construction), AR (Light Straw-Clay Construction), AQ (Tiny House), AU (Cob), and BA (Hemp-Lime).  Many states, including Oregon, have adopted some or most of these codes.  

Those of us trying to promote natural building to a wider audience (because it’s healthier for people, local economies, the planet, and more) realized that we could remain outside the system and complain about it, or we could try to change it from within.  In my view, we made the right choice because we are removing barriers to building with more natural materials.  In any recent year there may have been as many as a few thousand permitted homes and commercial buildings made with natural materials like strawbale, straw-clay, hemp wool, hempcrete, etc. in that year. This represents a tiny fraction of the approximately one-million homes built in the United States each year.  

If we want to help more people build with natural materials—if we want to shift that less-than-1% to 10%, or 20% or more, then we need to make it easier. Having building codes helps.

Jim
Many Hands Builders

Correction. I should have said that "DIY homeowners and builders aren't constrained so long as they are using approved building materials and methods." The building code has a provision for alternative construction methods and materials, but it requires permit applicants to demonstrate that what they want to do meets minimum code requirements.  When this concerns structural design the building plans must be reviewed by a structural engineer.  If other novel materials or methods are being proposed there's probably some other requirement, like submitting thermal or fire-resistance test results.  It can be onerous, but I think understandable.

For example, if you wanted to substitute cattail fluff for more conventional wall insulation because they are more natural and locally abundant, you may need to demonstrate that they aren't flammable, and that the cavity depth of fluff meets your region's requirements (e.g. R-21).  

Jim
Many Hands Builders