A futuristic building material is being touted by its manufacturer as the environmentally friendly and fire-resistant material California needs for a sustainable future.
RSG 3-D is a “cementitious sandwich panel” system with no combustible materials that can be subject to an open flame for two hours before catching fire, according to CNBC. The building material could allow houses to fare better than the state’s widespread wood-frame homes now burning across northern California in the latest wave of deadly wildfires.
The panels are made of a polystyrene core, sandwiched between a steel wire grid frame that penetrates through the core. Once assembled as the walls and roofs of a structure, the panels are covered with an outer layer of concrete. The system can be used in residential and commercial projects. After last year’s wildfires, Santa Rosa’s officials selected RSG 3-D panels for its new firewall.
NASA has used the material in spacecraft and it’s gained traction as a building material in Europe, but the U.S. construction market has been slow to adopt the material due to the popularity and abundance of wood.
Construction company Hutter Pioneer is building with the materials currently and its COO Geoffrey Evancic claimed the system is also superior to wood in terms of energy efficiency. [CNBC] – Dennis Lynch