Hello again Solar Building News friend,
My favorite vendors at the World of Concrete in Las Vegas this year were the concrete stain and stamp vendors.
I took more literature home and spent more time talking to this group than any other at the show. Since we are planning on building a combination passive and active solar home this spring, we need lots of mass to hold the heat in the winter and keep it cool in the summer.
We will be getting a lot of this mass from having all concrete floors in our new home. What we don’t plan on is having plain concrete gray througout the house. This is where the stain and stamps come in.
My wife Kathy plans on having the floors look like Italian tile and having all kinds of patterns, colors and even plans on using some stamps to add texture and 3D designs.
It’s amazing what you can do with concrete now… actually, we found very little that you can’t do with it.
You should have seen the log home they had last year built totally out of concrete looking logs. You would have never known the difference if you didn’t touch it.
We plan on having a split rail fence built at our drive entrance. That will now be a concrete fence that looks like split wood rails. Can you imagine how much longer that will last as compared to actual wood?
I know that concrete isn’t seen as the most green of the building materials because of the amount of energy it takes to create it. Where it makes up for that is in it’s longevity. The concrete we use will last many times longer than any other material we could use and will need almost no upkeep. That saves energy in the long run and lots of cash both in the beginning and over time when I don’t have to keep painting or replacing it.
Next up… a couple of photos from the show and one of the really great ideas I got for the house that should save a bundle in building costs.
Until then,
Wes
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