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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On May 27, 11:18*pm, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:
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/l2.../strangewall00...

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?

--
Dave - The Medway Handymanwww.medwayhandyman.co.uk


Quatermass ?

or straw ?

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
m...
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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is 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.

HTH

John

On Wed, 28 May 2008 00:14:16 +0100, "John"
wrote:



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.

Peter Johnson coughed up some electrons that declared:

On Wed, 28 May 2008 00:14:16 +0100, "John"
wrote:



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?

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
m...
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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?

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

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? ;-)

--
John Stumbles

Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana
Tits like coconuts

On 2008-05-28 01:05:20 +0100, John Stumbles said:

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.... ;-)

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
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?
;-)

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

"nightjar .me.uk" cpb@insert my surname here wrote in message
...

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
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? ;-)

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
Then it was supposed to end here, at Leeds. Now it's extended even further.

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"nightjar .me.uk" cpb@insert my surname here wrote in message
...

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
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? ;-)

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
Then it was supposed to end here, at Leeds. Now it's extended even
further.

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

wrote:
On 28 May,
John Stumbles wrote:

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?
;-)

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.


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.

--
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

The message
from contains these words:

* 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

"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?


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.or...&term_no=98303

On Wed, 28 May 2008 00:35:51 +0100 Bruce wrote :
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.

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

Tony Bryer wrote:

On Wed, 28 May 2008 00:35:51 +0100 Bruce wrote :
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.

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.


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.

On Tue, 27 May 2008 22:18:02 GMT, The Medway Handyman wrote:

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/l2...ngewall001.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

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
m...
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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk





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.

The Medway Handyman wrote:
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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?



Some answers already. My school had what was grandly called "The Music
School" - built in the first half of the sixties. All the practise rooms
had ceilings made of this - open and visible. I think it was also used
in some of the walls.

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&_82 004280=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

In article , The Medway
Handyman scribeth thus
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/l2...ngewall001.jpg

Never seen the like, what the kinell is it?




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

If it's solid cast in situ stuff rather than a panel product, it may
be strawcrete.

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.

" wrote:

If it's solid cast in situ stuff rather than a panel product, it may
be strawcrete.


No, it is Woodwool. See my previous postings.