adobe machine room?

[Richard]

In article <4718AFE6.29791.1E075F49 at cclist.sydex.com>,
    "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>  writes:

> On 19 Oct 2007 at 14:09, Richard wrote:
> 
> > Any thoughts on this?  Note that I'm not suggesting going without any
> > active cooling, just wondering if adobe construction would lower the
> > bills and make the necessary cooling equipment smaller.
> 
> There are lots of very good alternative construction techniques.  
> Walls made of straw bales covered with chicken wire and stucco were 
> very popular a few years ago.  Rammed earth is another possibility.  
> Why not go subterranean?  Relatively constant temperature year round.

I had considered rammed earth using the technique called "passive
annual heat storage".  Basically you have a huge dry earth mass into
which you pump heat all summer long and draw heat out of it all
winter long.  For a machine room, you'd probably want to do the
reverse: draw heat away from the machine room into the earth mass all
summer long and draw (some) heat out during the winter.  To create
a dry earth mass large enough to provide sufficient cooling for a
machine room I'd need to do some calculations, but off the top of my
head I was figuring that the earth mass would need to be pretty
large.  I was figuring I'd need to buy an empty lot instead of use
the back of my garage :-).

> Some local codes allow varied construction; others are downright 
> hostile.  Earthquake codes may get in the way of adobe in some areas. 
> Plumbing and wiring with adobe can be a real pain, unless you don't 
> mind running everything on the interior surface.  

Good point, I hadn't considered earthquake codes w.r.t. adobe.  As
for the wiring, I'd either live with the industrial look of interior
conduit or just put up drywall on the interior to hide it.
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