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Post by ChrisB on Sept 15, 2016 21:34:47 GMT
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Post by ChrisB on Nov 18, 2016 18:53:18 GMT
Windows Made of Wood! I was reading about some work that's being done on making a glass type product out of a wood / acrylic composite. Fascinating! As far as I can tell, at least three different bodies have already done this. The product is a material that is not quite as clear as glass but significantly more thermally efficient and it has the odd effect of giving the same quality of light in a room no matter where the sun is throughout the day.  To make it, they cut the wood across the grain, chemically remove the lignin from the wood and then flood the empty fibres with perspex. The result is transparent and twice as strong as the perspex on its own. So what you have is a bundle of very short tubes (the length of tube being the thickness of the glass) which the light passes through. The tubes direct the light as it passes through them and this gives the effect of constant light quality, so your cat won't have to keep moving as the patch of sunlight on the floor moves across the room as the sun tracks across the sky during the course of the day! |
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Post by MikeMusic on Nov 18, 2016 19:09:47 GMT
Sounds very odd.
How thermally efficient ?
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Post by MartinT on Nov 18, 2016 22:18:21 GMT
I can see how that would work, rather like the directional privacy screens for monitors popular with security agencies.
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Post by ChrisB on Nov 19, 2016 0:28:20 GMT
About he thermal efficiency - the channels in the wood transmit light with wavelengths around the range of the wavelengths of visible light, but they block the wavelengths that carry mostly heat. This also apparently makes it an excellent and cheap material for the construction of solar panels. There's the abstract of an article about it here |
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Post by MikeMusic on Nov 22, 2016 16:32:19 GMT
Sounds like a real winner for some applications
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Post by ChrisB on Dec 2, 2016 8:33:54 GMT
Canada's second biggest Douglas Fir tree was spared in a clearfelling operation and now goes by the name of Big Lonely Doug. It was climbed to acquire an accurate measurement and to bring to public attention the somewhat dodgy Government policy that allows the clearance of priceless ancient forests.
It's a beautiful piece of film taken from a drone.
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Post by mikeyb on Dec 2, 2016 8:40:06 GMT
With no other trees around it now, first big wind and it'll be down  |
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Post by MartinT on Dec 2, 2016 10:27:38 GMT
That's a brave man. Don't think I'd want to be doing that...
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 3, 2016 11:25:44 GMT
There was a recent house build programme called Tree something or other.
Sounded very interesting with *big* houses made of timber.
Crap programme made worse by them putting "500 year old trees" as the central point in many of their ostentatious builds
We don't have that many 500 year old trees guys even in Canada
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Post by MartinT on Dec 3, 2016 11:55:37 GMT
Knowing how much damage two much smaller trees stupidly planted too close to our new house has done (the paving has become crazy paving), I wouldn't want a living tree anywhere near my house.
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Post by ChrisB on Feb 22, 2017 20:46:53 GMT
This is great. A little tree, one of 5,000 or so, about 20cm tall planted in March last year. Here it is photographed in its tree shelter on 6th April 2016  Now see what it looked like last week....   |
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Post by ChrisB on Feb 22, 2017 20:48:14 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Feb 22, 2017 21:02:54 GMT
Wow, and  I think you meant April 2016, by the way. |
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Post by ChrisB on Feb 22, 2017 21:08:02 GMT
I did, yes thanks. Now corrected.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 23, 2017 1:06:45 GMT
 That picture reminds me of my days as an apprentice with B.T. (which was actually still The Post Office when I joined.) We had several training schools in London and it was always fun at the Kew school, in the winter, in a nice warm classroom on the top floor. You could look out of your window and the chances are, at some stage, you would spy a bunch of unfortunates silhouetted against the slate grey sky, climbing up the thirty-foot training poles which would be swaying nicely in the wind. Oh how we laughed at the lads on the poles & holes courses. To make it a little strange, from our windows we could see neither the ground, nor the top of the poles. All we would see were these strange figures in red helmets, bundled up against the elements, passing our windows on their ascent and a little later passing us by again in the opposite direction. Usually they numbered the same both times. Of course every apprentice had to climb a pole at least once but I got my climb out of the way early on in my apprenticeship...on an eight-foot pole, which was in a basement room in EC2.  |
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Post by MartinT on Feb 23, 2017 8:17:51 GMT
Usually they numbered the same both times.  |
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Post by ChrisB on Feb 25, 2017 0:46:52 GMT
Did you know that the UK is one of the least forested countries in Europe? Our woodland cover is just a smidge over 13% (10% in England), while the average in Europe is closer to 44%. These islands used to be wooded - that was the default habitat for most of the UK. We built an empire but one of the prices we paid for that was to use the timber in our forests.
We import 80% of our timber.
Over the last 40 years, there has been an unprecedented rise in the creation of woodland. This has been made possible by a grant system which recognised that growing trees is a long term commitment, with all of the costs loaded onto the front end.
Since the 50s our successive governments have had a principle that woodland is protected and you don't cut down trees without undertaking a commitment to replant the land and maintain the trees until they are properly established.
Despite the much spoken about paperless office, we use more timber and wood products than ever.
We are looking for meaningful ways to lock up CO2.
We all love and value woodland for the massive number of benefits that it can give to society
So why is it that both the Woodland Trust and CONFOR, the forestry trade organisation have both reported to the government that they believe that England has just entered into a state of net deforestation?
Let's recap and summarise: We cut most of our forests down but then we realised that was wrong and have been busy trying to replace what was lost. BUT now, because of development, infrastructure projects and a lack of support, we cut down more trees than we plant.
It's not the foresters who are doing the deforestation. We have always more than replaced what we have taken and we were doing sustainability before it had a name.
When I left college and went to my first job, I was personally responsible for planning for the planting of a quarter of a million trees per year. Every year. That was just me - one person. Contrast that with what is going on now.
(from the CONFOR website)
Please help. Tell your MP to help to try to sort it out and on a personal level, grab a spade and plant a tree somewhere. Anywhere.
Trees are vital to our well being. When you find a way to breathe CO2, come back and we'll talk again.
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Post by MartinT on Feb 25, 2017 9:16:19 GMT
That's very sobering, Chris. I suspected as much (so much building going on using green sites) but it's shocking to read what you say. I would talk to my MP if I thought for one second that that person would care. Perhaps we can bring it up when we get to know the local council better.
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Post by ChrisB on Jun 2, 2017 5:45:29 GMT
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