Plastic

[Brett_Tabke]

I look around the desk here and count three dozen items made with plastic. There is just no end to plastic in our daily lives.

So, why no plastic houses?

[Mike_Mackin]

Flush with cash from its Cache Creek Indian Bingo & Casino, the small Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians is building itself about two dozen luxury homes [bizjournals.com] made out of recycled plastic.

[digitalghost]

They do make plastic houses. There are companies that manufacture plastic 2x4s, the siding on many of them are vinyl and you can get platic siding that looks like stones or brick. I've also seen plastic tiles that resemble terra cotta tiles used for roofs.

The problem with making an entire house out of plastic is that most plastics are inflammable. Making the material flame retardant adds to the cost and I certainly wouldn't want to be the one hanging plastic sheetrock.

[Knowles]

No proof for this but I would guess its probably like steel houses. They have proven to be stronger than wood houses but are not strongly used. People are used to houses being built out of wood. Thats just my guess.

edited sentence structure Im not awake yet so its probably still not right

[Brett_Tabke]

Why not houses made in a single pour via plastic extrusion?

They could do it in a factory, and it would be so light, they could fly the entire house in with a helicopter. I suppose putting in some form of insulation would be the tricky part.

[digitalghost]

Skip Zink, a real-estate broker in Reno, is about to start building a 2,200-square-foot American Structural Composites plastic house on spec.

[homes.wsj.com...]

[Hawkgirl]

> They could do it in a factory, and it would be so light, they could fly the entire house in with a helicopter.

And then the first bit of foul Texas weather to come along would fly that house right back up to the factory ... with passengers this time.

[lorax]

>> So, why no plastic houses?

Whaddya mean - haven't you heard of vinyl siding or recycled plastic lumber? ;)

[ScottM]

The problem is the coefficient of thermal expansion. Plastic tends to grow and shrink significantly based on temperature.

With nearly a 100 degree swing in temperature between winter and summer, a plastic house would end up having several gaps (holes).

Another problem with this expanding and contracting would be the noise level. It would get very annoying....

[Robert Charlton]

I know that a lot of plastic disintegrates in sunlight. Not sure whether they have this licked for plastic that might be used for building.

>>I suppose putting in some form of insulation would be the tricky part.<<

And hanging a picture could compromise the entire structure.

[digitalghost]

Scott, Robert, they are already manufacturing houses made of plastic. :)

There's an entire area of eastern Kentucky populated with "Ecological Plastic Homes". Huge debate over whether they are ecologically sound though.

Some new homes are coming with Sintex cabinets and there's another version of the stuff for wallboard.

[ken_b]

I replaced my outdoor deck floor with an expensive (3 times the cost of cedar wood decking), supposedly high quality plastic composite decking from a highly regarded building materials manufacturer.

Two seasons later, the stuff looks like trash, it's warped, stained, blah, blah, blah.....

They may get this stuff right eventually, but as of now, some of these new tech materials and methods are just not ready for prime time.

[olwen]

Polystyrene is used in some building systems. Either as panels that are plastered over, or as blocks that are then filled with concrete. They have some drawbacks, like fumes if you have a fire, and the plastered panels don't stand up well to being knocked by a vehicle.

[weblamer2]

I drive a saturn.

That is sort of a plastic car.