Reed construction in Vihti

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Created on Tuesday, 08 November 2011 08:48

Published on Tuesday, 08 November 2011 08:48

Written by Rauli Lautkankare

On Wednesday June 29th 2011 reed building and construction was presented in Vihti. In addition to actual building practices, there was a lecture about the properties of reed and its potential in building. Information was given about the currently ongoing COFREEN project. There were 12 people in the audience, all of them with personal interest to the topic. In the audience, there were also Estonian reed builders led by Siim Sooster.

The topics that raised special conversation included the profitability of reed entrepreneurship, the possibilities to make it profitable in Finland and possibilities to get a building permit for reed building projects, i.e. convincing the authorities in fire safety issues. Nowadays it is easy for the authorities to refuse a building permit, partly because of ignorance. Hopefully the new RT file produced by the project will change the situation. However, in many areas a lot more developmental work is needed in order to make the whole new system work smoothly and in order to get the reed cut from the shores and used for construction.

Areal plans for reed cutting, appropriate equipment, entrepreneurs, marketing and spreading of information are needed. As they say: "Ten first targets are the most difficult." This week (week 26) there will be one more again. After the lecture we explored a smoke sauna that was being built out of clay. Helanen (the builder) is planning to make a reed roof to the sauna by himself, after learning from the example of Estonian contractors constructing the main building.

One side of the roof almost covered.

Participants

There is reed in the walls of the smoke sauna. Also the roofing will be reed.