Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?
--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
Quatermass ?
or straw ?
My house 1992 build has similar in the upstairs internal walls. It is a
bas***d to get any good anchoring on. The stuff in my house was made by a
company called Stramit http://www.stramit.co.uk/index.html. I know because
when we had a leak in the old shower the straw just soaked up the water and
eventually it was spotted due to a musty smell in an unused spare bedroom.
When I removed the straw wall to replace with PB etc for the En-Suite refit
the word Stramit was clearly visible on the surface.
HTH
John
There was a type of particle board made from straw as an attempt to do
something useful with a material of which there was a large surplus*. It
looked a lot like that.
* Apparently, enough to cover the M1 from London to Birmingham to a height
of several feet, which some people thought was a good suggestion.
Colin Bignell
It looks very much like "Woodwool".
Not to be confused with the soft material of the similar name (wood
wool) used to stuff teddy bears and other soft toys, or to pack
delicate items for sending through the post, it is a stiff board made
from waste wood strips bound together with cement and pressed into
shape.
Uses included roof and wall cladding. It was often used as permanent
formwork for suspended concrete floors. I have a feeling that this
use was restricted or after problems with some of these structures
which were concealed by the woodwool. But it was very popular and
there will still be a lot of it about.
Some links:
http://www.skanda-uk.com/
http://thesaurus.english-heritage.org.uk/thesaurus_term.asp?thes_no=129&term_no=98303
> * Apparently, enough to cover the M1 from London to Birmingham to a
> height of several feet, which some people thought was a good suggestion.
That'd be a different M1 from the one that doesn't go to Birmingham, then? ;-)
--
John Stumbles
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana
Tits like coconuts
> On Wed, 28 May 2008 00:22:55 +0100, "nightjar" <cpb@ wrote:
>
>> * Apparently, enough to cover the M1 from London to Birmingham to a
>> height of several feet, which some people thought was a good suggestion.
>
> That'd be a different M1 from the one that doesn't go to Birmingham, then? ;-)
Well, once you get past Rugby, it;s all over anyway.... ;-)
> Working in a 1960's (?) built house today with a lot of partition walls
> removed & under the plaster/render was this;
> http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l284/davidlang_photos/strangewall001.jpg
>
> Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?
As someone else said, Stramit board. Cursed stuff, seemed like a good idea
at the time.
My last house (architect-designed and he lived in it for some time -
there's a novelty!) had the stuff as a base for the flat roof. It was just
starting to give problems around the chimney and vent pipes when we sold
it.
--
the dot wanderer at tesco dot net
This house, was it on an estate type of housing? my recollection of that
stuff is roundabout the 70's because it was a cheap sound insulation.
It would be the first section, junctions 2 to 18, which was considered to be
the London to Birmingham motorway until further bits were built from 1965
on.
Colin Bignell
I always assumed a) it was a compressed straw product b) it had sound
absorption properties.
Was that the Swedish or the Norwegian Kinells you mentioned?
<http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=0&gsln=Kinell&db=nypl&gss=genfact&_82004280=Sweden>
--
Rod
Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
<www.thyromind.info> <www.thyroiduk.org> <www.altsupportthyroid.org>
I always thought that the M1 was sort of going towards Newcastle (old
A1) and sort of going towards Birmingham and they didn't want to pay for
two motorways. So it ended up going to Leeds.
I've seen that in my parents old concrete house built just after the war
looks like wood shavings mixed in with some sort of cement...
--
Tony Sayer
> > > * Apparently, enough to cover the M1 from London to Birmingham to a
> > > height of several feet, which some people thought was a good suggestion.
> >
> > That'd be a different M1 from the one that doesn't go to Birmingham, then?
> > ;-)
> >
> It has puzzled me for years that the M1 was described in early days as the
> London to Birmingham motorway. Perhaps it's really the M6 and the M1 leaves
> it at Rugby.
The southern end of the M6 was a relatively late addition (late
60s/early 70s?). Prior to that the London/Birmingham route was
M1/M45/A45.
--
Roger Chapman
Yes, it looks like woodwool to me. The problems you refer to came to light
at New Malden House, a tower of about 12 storeys (IIRC) in SW London. The
floors were made by using woodwool slabs as permanent shuttering,
reinforcement and concrete on top. What happened was that when the
concrete was poured, the woodwool acted as a lovely vibration soak,
leaving the concrete far from compacted, but, as you say, this could not
be seen as the woodwool was not removed.
--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Thanks, Tony.
Those were the days ... failures due to improper use of woodwool and
high alumina cement, alkali-aggregate reaction (a.k.a. "concrete
cancer" ... !
With woodwool, the concrete needed extra careful compaction. I think
the biggest problems were with slabs that incorporated downstand
beams, and it would have been difficult to ensure proper compaction.
The biggest problem of all was that you never got to see the concrete,
as the woodwool was left in situ. At least when you stripped
traditional formwork, problems like this could be identified and
remedial action taken.
Ironically, modern concrete mixes require far less compaction and they
would make woodwool a very sensible alternative to conventional
formwork. But once a product has a bad name, that's it.
>
>My house 1992 build has similar in the upstairs internal walls. It is a
>bas***d to get any good anchoring on. The stuff in my house was made by a
>company called Stramit http://www.stramit.co.uk/index.html. I know because
>when we had a leak in the old shower the straw just soaked up the water and
>eventually it was spotted due to a musty smell in an unused spare bedroom.
>When I removed the straw wall to replace with PB etc for the En-Suite refit
>the word Stramit was clearly visible on the surface.
>
My house, built 1988, has it, or something like it, in the bathroom,
en suite and cloakroom walls. My last house, also built 1988 but by a
different builder, had it in the bathroom walls.
I think I saw something similar comprising the flat roof substrate at
CenterParcs in Belgium (Erpeheide). Possibly a denser/stringer version?
To get past Leeds to the A64 around York? The A1 M1 link road? A fair bit of
the motorway (inc M621) was renamed as the junction was created.
It now means there are 6 lanes of standing traffic at rush hour where the
A1, M1 and M62 roughly join each other instead of the three lanes of
standing traffic that we had before.
Is that progress?
Adam
When I worked at Oxford Brookes, one building had a roof of the stuff.
Apparently they had visitors from around the world look at it, as it
was a very low cost technique suitable for developing countries.
No, it is Woodwool. See my previous postings.
Does the M1 still go down to two lanes for a section of viaduct as it
passes Sheffield near the old steelworks cooling towers?
>
>Does the M1 still go down to two lanes for a section of viaduct as it
>passes Sheffield near the old steelworks cooling towers?
Yes it does. That was instigated before/whilst/until the Tinsley
Viaduct was being strengthened (Again ! ) and proved so successful
that there are no plans to widen it back out to 3 lanes. So they say.
Far be it from me to suggest it is in order to reduce the payout when
it eventually does a "Santa - Monica".
DG
Yes. It is a PITA unless you are joining the motorway at J34.
The cooling towers are not steelwork towers but old power station cooling
towers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsley_Viaduct
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5160214.stm
Radio Sheffield tried to save them but they are still doomed.
One of the worst feelings I have ever had is getting out of my car on the
underpass part of the viaduct to help the driver in front of me when his car
had broken down. The whole bridge/viaduct moves as traffic passes over the
top half. I felt sea sick.
Adam
That isn't quite true. The last strengthening brought it up to full
strength for the largest lorries and it is fully capable of supporting
three lanes of traffic in each direction.
However, the intention is to leave it restricted to two lanes each way
until the M1 on each side of it is widened from three to four lanes
each way. And apparently that's official, from the Highways Agency.
>Derek Geldard <d...@miniac.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>On Fri, 30 May 2008 08:30:12 -0700 (PDT), cynic wrote:
>>>
>>>Does the M1 still go down to two lanes for a section of viaduct as it
>>>passes Sheffield near the old steelworks cooling towers?
>>
>>Yes it does. That was instigated before/whilst/until the Tinsley
>>Viaduct was being strengthened (Again ! ) and proved so successful
>>that there are no plans to widen it back out to 3 lanes. So they say.
>
>
>That isn't quite true. The last strengthening brought it up to full
>strength for the largest lorries and it is fully capable of supporting
>three lanes of traffic in each direction.
>
>However, the intention is to leave it restricted to two lanes each way
Hmmm, that's odd isn't it just after they supposedly got it sorted
after *many* years of it being reduced to 2 lanes presumably in order
to minimise the payout in the event of a "Santa Monica Freeway"
incident.
I can distinctly remember it being lane -restricted Ca. 1970 when I
used it every week to get back to Leeds from working in London (+ret.)
>until the M1 on each side of it is widened from three to four lanes
>each way. And apparently that's official, from the Highways Agency.
I've not seen that on their website, however their pronunciations on
the topic have been both capricious and sparse.
Derek
I think there have been three major schemes of work on the Tinsley
Viaduct. The first was to strengthen it after several failures of box
girder bridges elsewhere cast doubt on part of the design method used
for all of them. Then there was a second round of work to make access
into the box girders easier for internal repainting and other
maintenance. Finally, the most recent contract was to strengthen the
structure to take the latest EU-proposed Large Goods Vehicles which
are at least twice as heavy as anything the bridge was originally
designed for. There may have been a fourth contract somewhere in
between, but I'm certain of those three.
>>until the M1 on each side of it is widened from three to four lanes
>>each way. And apparently that's official, from the Highways Agency.
>
>I've not seen that on their website, however their pronunciations on
>the topic have been both capricious and sparse.
I got that from one of the engineering magazines, plus from a former
colleague of mine who worked on the last contract. I asked him when
the viaduct would be restored to three lanes and he told me that,
according to the Highways Agency, it would have to stay at dual two
lanes until the M1 was widened to dual four lanes, when the viaduct
would revert to dual three lanes. I recall that the decision related
to the capacity for queueing traffic waiting to exit the M1.
Stop Press: I have just found the following official press release
from the Highways Agency dated 10 October 2005:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.asp?NewsAreaID=2&ReleaseID=172690
It states:
It has been decided that the current layout of two lanes each way,
with dedicated lanes for traffic entering and leaving the M1 at this
busy junction, will be maintained until the completion of work to
widen the M1 between Chesterfield and Leeds, which was announced in
April this year.