Sturdier Home Seen from Novel Process : Computerized Panelization Technique Held Answer to Quake, Moisture Damage
How would you like to own a home capable of surviving a violent earthquake, one that can resist water, moisture, rot, mildew and does not sag, warp, shrink or burn?
Does this seem like a futuristic pipe dream?
Not to Roger Rasbach, founder of Rasbach Building Technologies, whose Houston-based firm is ready to deliver some of that dream to home builders through its first computerized panelization production facility in Sebring, Fla.
Rasbach believes the solution to better construction is through computer control and sturdy composite wall systems created from polystyrene (not to be confused with polyurethane)--a nontoxic, closed-cell, foam-core material resembling the shell of a disposable coffee cup.
A Day’s Labor
RBT’s innovative panel concept is steel-bolted or spiked together and incorporates special channeling through which all conduit tubing can be fed. The system eliminates the need for skilled labor of individual trades, and the shell of an average RBT house, Rasbach said, can be completed in one day, with all doors and windows in place.
The cost for a house built by this system would be equivalent to current building costs for traditional construction, he added.
“Our process uses advanced aerospace technology and a computerized system that assists with daily schedules, delivers exact lists of needs, updates, cost analyses and options, selects from a range of finishes, materials and equipment and programs energy efficiency.”
In the process of engineering development, Rasbach said, are plug-in modules for mechanical systems that will provide a “Lego toys” approach to a building system he believes could well be the key to efficient, affordable home building in the future.
The Spring Lakes development in Sebring, a 3,500-unit pilot project under construction, will use RBT construction components exclusively and none of the conventional 2x4s, concrete blocks or wood trusses.
Created ‘Think Tank’
Also beginning construction with RBT components is Cypress Creek, an experimental 320-unit, low-cost, subsidized housing project in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Confident that the U.S. building industry has been on the threshold of a major revolution for some time, Rasbach put together a company “think tank” five years ago that consisted of computer programmers, engineers, behavioral scientists, urban planners, color consultants and hard-nosed production builder types to provide a broad input and clear guidelines for company action. The RBT team also includes a scientist from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Joseph P. Colaco, a noted Houston-based structural engineer and a consultant for RBT for the past year and a half, has developed the steel framing system which, combined with RBT components, is designed to ensure additional integrity and strength to homes being built in earthquake-prone areas.
The president of CBM Engineering Inc., known to Southland developers as one of the nation’s leading seismic engineers, is assigned to major structural engineering tasks in the Southland that include the 73-story Library Tower, at 633 W. 5th Street, (renamed First Interstate World Center, which will be the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast), the Wilshire at Figueroa (Mitsui) office tower, the Gateway project at Temple and Figueroa streets in downtown Los Angeles, and the Carnation Co. headquarters in Glendale.
“The concept of panelization for housing is not new,” Colaco said. “But what is innovative with RBT is its advanced technology and the concept that brings together the marriage of pliant panelization and lightweight steel framing for use in areas subjected to major seismic stress.”
Colaco said the solution to building structures capable of resisting earthquake damage lies in reducing the weight of buildings and making them tougher.
“New construction methods have long been overdue, while other industries have virtually reinvented the way in which they make new products and equipment,” Rasbach said.
Of particular concern to the designer is the waste factor.
“On construction sites today we still use the same system developed more than 100 years ago by Augustus Taylor, inventor of the 2x4 construction method,” he said.
“And we continue to assemble hundreds of pieces of material with tens of thousands of nails and fasteners, perpetuating not only waste and inefficiency, but also theft of materials on the job site.”
Another concern, he said, is the deterioration of the ozone layer caused by such culprits as toxic closed-cell plastics. “Americans represent only 5% of the world population, yet we contribute 25% to the deteriorating ozone environmental problem,” he said.
Redesigning Systems
The most effective solution, Rasbach feels, lies in cutting down on gases used in refrigerants and solvents, and also in redesigning air conditioning and other energy-related systems.
“The synergistic computerized approach to the RBT computerized fabrication process and determination of cost parameters, is designed to do away with the high waste factor we see as an in-built cost in conventionally constructed houses. As panelization construction becomes more readily available, construction costs will also decrease,” Rasbach said.
The RBT team has shown that the highly diverse and cyclic American housing market will be best served by small automated panelization facilities that can be located in both rural and urban housing markets, or relocated if housing markets change, its president said.
When Rasbach was only 21, his prize-winning home concept was considered so innovative that it was built to scale at the 1950 California Home Exposition in Los Angeles.
He later built luxury custom-designed homes, and was hailed as a forerunner in automated construction after introducing the first Computer House (as a design cost-control and engineering tool) to delegates of the National Assn. of Home Builders convention in Houston in 1971.
The home model was the first to use computer technology in cost study and material use, and its interior and exterior walls were each made of three-quarter-inch plywood welded to a core of polystyrene (also a first in housing technology), providing twice the insulation of normally constructed walls.
