"The realization of my dream to create the very best buildings in the world is the development of our prefabricated solid Holz100 House. A good energy-efficient home should not only be comfortable, natural and healthy. It needs to have excellent ratings regarding insulation (heat, cold, acoustic, electromagnetic radiation), fire safety, and air conditioning." - Dr. Erwin Thoma We found wood has many hidden qualities and we developed a traditional building technique into a new and healthy 'High Tech' innovation. The name means pure, 100% wood, nothing added. With a Holz100 house, walls, ceilings and roof are made of large, solid and prefabricated wooden panels which can be erected in a very short space of time. These elements are made of untreated wood, no glues, laminates, or nails. To build with Holz100 elements results in high-performance ratings which previously were thought of as impossible. Holz100 elements consist of boards and battens which, piece by piece, are lying horizontally next to each other making up the size of the panel. The second layer is stacked diagonally, the third layer vertically and so on. These layers form elements as thick as is required for walls, ceilings and floors. The question now is how to keep them together and end up with cohesive building elements. The solution lies in wood itself. As early as antiquity itself and at the time of ancient Egypt, large blocks of rock were exploded and split by swelling wood. Lacking explosives and machinery, people fitted bone-dry wooden dowels into holes and cracks. Then, they just added water. Dry wood absorbs the moisture and expands. This irresistibly strong force even splits granite boulders. It is one of the strongest forces in nature and we harness it for our Holz100 elements. Holes are drilled through all the element's layers, each consisting of individual battens lying next to each other. Then kiln-dried wooden dowels are driven into the neatly fitting holes. Even in dry climates a wooden wall always retains rest moisture (ranging from 6% to 15% relative moisture content). The moisture of the surrounding wood is absorbed by the dowel which swells and expands tightly into its hole. Because no room climate anywhere in the world can be as dry as in a kiln, this joint can't ever be dissolved other than by drilling it out. Because the layers are stacked crisscross, the patented Holz100 element is solid. It can be rendered, tiled or painted. The advantages of building with purely natural, untreated wood are mainly in the following areas: Fire Safety Warmth and Noise Insulation Air Conditioning Cooling Down Time Radiation Shielding Earthquake Safety Scientific tests, publications and building certifications were undertaken at several different universities and institutes in Austria, Germany, Norway, Japan and USA which are now available through the Erwin Thoma Research Centre.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHolz100 Canada Inc. Archives
July 2019
Categories
All
|