Sustainable Building Materials

A mainstay of our work here at 2GreenEnergy is finding strategic business partners for companies whose products support sustainability.  One such enterprise is Century Board, which maintains a proven, proprietary process by which it takes waste streams (some of them toxic, e.g., coal ash) and turns them into profit centers in the form of polymer composites, extruded into high-quality building products (especially roofing shingles) that are structurally superior in strength and stiffness, as well as resistant to fire, weather, mold and termites.

I just came across a product called Porotherm Bricks (video linked here), and, even though it has some of the same characteristics, I’m not nearly as sanguine on it.

These large bricks are used for the construction of buildings’ outer walls, and are individually mortared together in a slow and painstaking fashion to ensure that walls are plane and level.  Even the video makes this look like a royal pain in the neck.

While I’m sure they offer great thermal insulation, they’re quite thick, and thus the builder must content himself with less internal area.

The voice-over in the video was done with text-to-voice software, which, I’m sure is because founders don’t speak English, and didn’t want to pay for 10 minutes of time from someone who does.  That wouldn’t have been a problem, except that they don’t write English either, and thus there are dozens of amusing little mistakes.  It sounds like an American who’s had a lobotomy, and a couple of beers on top of it.

I’ll be amazed if this company succeeds.