Some buildings now have a thin layer of something hard, then there's styrofoam inside.

[raccoon]

I saw a column at a grocery store like that. The thin layer had been chipped, and underneath was the styrofoam.

How long can a structure like that be expected to last?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The styrofoam isn't structural. Something else, probably a steel or concrete post,

is under the styrofoam.

[Motown_Johnny]

19. +1

That has to be insulation.

[HockeyMom]

2. Well, living in Florida now

with the danger of hurricanes, everything is made of concrete, at least newer buildings are.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. You want to laugh?

The central jail in El Cajon was built like that, the top five floors, where cells were. Care to guess at the number of escapes they had?

There is a reason why it is no longer the central jail.

[struggle4progress]

17. What a great story!

... The plans called for concrete walls four to seven inches thick, he said. ''But what we've got is drywall, empty space, and four inches of stryofoam,'' Captain McLaughlin added. County politicians were outraged when they discovered their jail walls were flimsier then those at the local dog pound. It turned out that the San Diego County Board of Supervisors itself had decided a decade before to save $600,000 by cutting out the concrete ...

When Captain McLaughlin first took over the East County Jail two years ago, he was impressed with the nine-story structure, which some referred to as El Cajon's first high-rise hotel.

But his opinion began to change last summer when a career burglar, John J. Pugh, decided to kick out the jail windows and escape. Even Mr. Pugh was surprised when the walls around the glass broke through after only a few kicks. He fled on July 17, 1989, on a rope made of bedsheets. Mr. Pugh traveled to Ohio to visit his dying father and then back to San Diego, where he hid in a crack house and a brothel until the authorities caught up with him, four weeks later.

Mr. Pugh, who is 38 years old, become a local hero among the jailhouse crowd ...

Jail in California Is a Breakout Artist's Dream
Special to The New York Times
Published: June 03, 1990
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/03/us/jail-in-california-is-a-breakout-artist-s-dream.html

[SoutherDem]

4. They aren't

I was told in 1988 that most shopping center buildings to day were designed to give 10 years of primary life, 10 years of secondary life, then to be torn down and something new goes in.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Mmmm ... flammable.

Yes, let's coat the entire building in a nice shell of FLAMMABLE insulation. What could possibly go wrong ?

[backscatter712]

12. To be fair, building codes require such foam or drywall to be treated with fire-retardants.

So fire risk isn't significantly higher than with other construction methods.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

18. Fair? Maybe not. See, e.g., "Chicago Tribune proves 'FIRE RETARDANTS' don't work"

The notoriously ... Chicago Tribune is reporting that Chemical companies manipulated the science and outright lied about the effectiveness of so-called "FIRE RETARDANTS".
http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/dankir/blog/2012/05/chicago-tribune-proves-fire-retardants-dont-work

A more extended story from the Tribue was reported here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/flames/ct-met-flame-retardants-20120506,0,3214816,full.story

[unblock]

6. umm, insulation perhaps?

buildings actually require far less steel than most people think.

people feel more comforted seeing a gigantic, solid-looking column, but in fact a small hollow column will often do the job.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. I think I read that using styofoam as a building material would

outlast traditional wood houses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_insulated_panel
http://www.foamfast.com.au/exintex-exinflex-rendering.html
http://www.lazarianworldhomes.com/building_system

[Schema Thing]

8. It's an insulated facade, not the structural portion of the building.

[HereSince1628]

9. Yes, pretty typical for big box store fronts

Styrofoam mounted on metal forms with a coating of fiberglass.

I put up a pored concrete basement using foam-forms that became insulation...on the exposed outside got covered in a fiberglass stucco.

[backscatter712]

10. I've seen it too.

Usually, it's just a steel pipe that's the actual structure that holds the roof up, then they put drywall around it to make it look like a stout concrete column.

[Schema Thing]

20. And that styrofoam w/fiberglass probably provides a lot more shear strength

than most people would imagine.

[Safetykitten]

11. It's Dryvit.

[4th law of robotics]

13. Presumably there was a steel structure underneath

then Styrofoam for insulation or to simply fill up space, then a hard outer layer to impress people.


We like to see huge columns supporting our buildings because it seems safer. And that made sense when those were made out of stone.

But with modern steel structures you don't really need all that.

But the notion is still ingrained that we do. Hence the larger than necessary pillars.

[HopeHoops]

14. There's a steel pipe behind the styrofoam. The styrofoam is just there for decoration.

[Ganja Ninja]

15. Dryvit is one name for it.

It's used on most new buildings. Sometimes its covering over concrete block and sometimes its covering a layer of drywall over metal studs. Its a covering not a structural component and it should last the life of the building.

[KitSileya]

16. It depends on the climate, I guess.

I don't know about styrofoam and grocery stores, but right now I'm watching a house being built across the street (I'm in OR) and the fact that they use particle boards for the walls surprises me. I am used to the much more substantial materials you need to build houses in Norway, and these houses, with their shallow concrete foundations and one and a half story height seem like dolls' houses to someone who watches her vocational students build houses from real planks of wood and with proper basements.

We just went on a trip to Las Vegas, and at the Mob Attraction museum (which I recommend, especially for those who love to do RPG) they had an interactive display of the development of the Strip. I think the big casinoes there, in the middle of the desert, have an average life expectancy of 20 years. Now that's wasting resources!