# Cushion and Wall Moss



## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

It turns out silver cushion moss and wall moss will grow directly on cement.

It also turns out the thick, 4-inch blanket will provide R-3.56.

I've favorably compared R-3.5 on the large, east-facing cement-over-brick wall to 2 inches of Polyisocyanine at R-13.6: R-3 drops my heating load by 15%, R-4 by 20%, and R-13.6 by 28%. With the windows and regular insulation in place, I come down to 45000BTU; R-3.5 is between 35000BTU and 38000BTU, and R-13 at 32500BTU, so the bulk is doable at lower R values.

So here's the choice: $3000 of Iso, $1500 of masonry screws, hours of drilling, affixing, siding...

... or grow some cushion moss on that wall for like $80, plus rain and hose.










Some manufacturers sell kits to provide a better anchor for these mosses; they're not as expensive as insulation jobs. In either case, the insulation isn't as good--but it's largely better than nothing.

Good for a first attempt?


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## Blondesense (Sep 23, 2008)

Beautiful stuff!

Where are you and what wall???

I'm assuming you are talking about an exterior wall with the correct exposure. 

Bugs, mice, moisture, mold would be my concern.

What happens to it during the winter when you really need it?



Cool lookin' moss tho.


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

I'm in Baltimore.










Wall to the East. It's bright and sunny, and the sun here will fry moss like a nuclear cannon; but I could grow an ivy over it for cover. That wall will eventually rest behind the shade of trees. Mind you, moss is supposed to grow in shade, but these people...










...are obviously growing in full sun.

Moisture is a concern. I need to keep the moss wet or it will die. This is not hard, but it could dry out. On hot days, it's incredibly humid; this is not really as difficult as it sounds, but direct sun can dry it out.

Moss is generally evergreen. Even dormant, four inches of thick cushion moss will remain four inches of thick cushion moss. These folks seem to think it works well enough.


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## Blondesense (Sep 23, 2008)

> So here's the choice: $3000 of Iso, $1500 of masonry screws, hours of drilling, affixing, siding...
> 
> ... or grow some cushion moss on that wall for like $80, plus rain and hose.Oregon coast is a much different environment than Baltimore.


Plus countless hours of your life and an exorbitant water bill trying to keep something alive that was never meant to live in that environment.

I'm outta here.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

I wouldn't do it.

Too many moisture issues.


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Blondesense said:


> Plus countless hours of your life and an exorbitant water bill trying to keep something alive that was never meant to live in that environment.


Most such installations get 2 minutes of misting per day at most. The environment it's designed for is shade and damp; it's damp enough here that there's a constant tacky film on everything _inside_ my house (envelope isn't well sealed; I'm working on that).

If I can get sphagnum and sarracenia to grow here, I can grow moss. You should see the hell it takes to grow blueberries when my soil is clay--they hate being wet, and I dug an 8 inch deep hole and filled it with standing water for 3 hours.



Windows on Wash said:


> Too many moisture issues.


Explain? It's cement, and already exposed to rain, ice, and humidity.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Any it can dry to outside.

The number of homes that are ruined by keeping moisture against up against it are numerous.


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## susandd (Aug 1, 2014)

This is so beautiful wow


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Windows on Wash said:


> Any it can dry to outside.


What? This sentence doesn't parse.



> The number of homes that are ruined by keeping moisture against up against it are numerous.


Moisture up against exposed cement.

This stuff has no roots and draws no sustenance from substrate. Some ivies--english Thorndale for example--can suck lime out of the mortar between bricks, while working roots into the mortar and degrading it.


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## Canucker (May 5, 2011)

The sentence makes sense. Where do you think the moisture goes presently?


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Canucker said:


> The sentence makes sense. Where do you think the moisture goes presently?


"Any it can dry to outside."

I can't figure out how this is supposed to have any meaning. It's word salad. We're talking about moisture and things which are outside, and you emitted random words that include a term relating to water and a term related to outside.

"Car it rage can potato to square."

Presently, the moisture dries out--when it's not raining 4-6 days a week for 6 weeks straight. The summer is 75% humidity for several months. The bricks behind are growing moss already--they're shaded, and it just naturally grows on the wall because the wall is wet pretty much constantly.


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## Canucker (May 5, 2011)

Ahh, I see where the breakdown is. Ok, instead of diving into the details of how and why right away, let's find out how your place is put together. So, here is what we'll need from you:
1) Is there a vapour barrier under your basement floor?
2)Is there a capillary break of some kind between your footings and the base of your block wall?
3)Is there some kind of coating on the outside of your basement wall below grade to deal with ground water/moisture? (I can't see any in the pic but it may be there)
4)Is there a capillary break on the top of your block wall, between it and where your floor joists sit?
5)Is the wall you want to grow the moss on insulated on the inside?


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Canucker said:


> Ahh, I see where the breakdown is. Ok, instead of diving into the details of how and why right away, let's find out how your place is put together. So, here is what we'll need from you:


Ah now we're talkin'.



> 1) Is there a vapour barrier under your basement floor?


Basement floor is concrete slab. I don't know if it has a vapor barrier; it's over a drain bed, and has a sump. Water can ingress/egress around the base of the wall--I've had it flood and drain that way once, and it seems to rely on drainage by sump (the hole cut for the sump is actually a mound rising 1+ inch above the slab; if the basement floods and it pumps the water out, the water drains around the edge of the walls into the drain bed, and is then pumped into the sump).

I don't know how much work this needs, but I at least want a french drain around the perimeter.



> 2)Is there a capillary break of some kind between your footings and the base of your block wall?


Nope. When they built the block wall, the original wall was raw brick straight down. It's built like this:










They poured a small cement slab, cemented the blocks on top a few weeks later. You can see the wooden box around the footer here:












> 3)Is there some kind of coating on the outside of your basement wall below grade to deal with ground water/moisture? (I can't see any in the pic but it may be there)


Up to grade, there's a stripe of tar painted across. Which, by the way, I don't have in the back, where water rushes in like a god damn river; even my mains inlet doesn't pour water that fast. Need to fix that.












> 4)Is there a capillary break on the top of your block wall, between it and where your floor joists sit?


No. It's brick with cement on top of it. The block is just cemented to the wall. The joists actually sit behind block, which ends one block higher. They eliminate standing (pooled) water by applying a sloped layer of cement on top: the top of the block wall is graded away from the cement-veneered brick. (Took me a while to figure out they didn't do that just to prevent me from climbing on it.)

The brick had a metal mesh netting nailed to it.












> 5)Is the wall you want to grow the moss on insulated on the inside?


Nope. The wall is such that insulating it would prevent the front door from opening, because the door is about 1.5 inches from the brick wall itself. It must be insulated on the outside.

That wall is also the wall the stairs are up against. I can most likely insulate the basement, kitchen, bathroom, and possibly the upstairs bedroom, getting 66% coverage, but only 50% coverage of conditioned space.

I'm mainly exploring this as an alternate insulation and siding option.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Windows on Wash said:


> Any it can dry to outside.
> 
> The number of homes that are ruined by keeping moisture against up against it are numerous.



It was a cellphone transcription error.

It was supposed to read "And it can dry to outside".

I wouldn't do it. I have seen countless masonry walls ruined by moss and vines.


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Windows on Wash said:


> It was a cellphone transcription error.
> 
> It was supposed to read "And it can dry to outside".


Oh. Okay, that's closer. Just have to strike the 'to' and it's a proper English sentence. I was trying all kinds of combinations of commas and missing words.



> I wouldn't do it. I have seen countless masonry walls ruined by moss and vines.


Inspectors seem to debate over whether moss is itself harmful or only indicative of other problems. For example: my rear bricks have moss in them and are destroyed. Mortar is gone, the bricks themselves are cracked into chips. It's actually a spectacular sight: it's difficult to imagine how bricks get broken in exactly that way.

Then it rains, and you notice the one to two inch thick sheet of water coming down that part of the house.

The water's just gushing down that wall, so much so that my windows look like a view from behind a mildly vigorous waterfall. It's like a creek has been diverted off my roof. The moss isn't the problem there; it's the sheer erosion from hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. One inch of rain will run 600 gallons off my roof; here in Baltimore, that's almost 25,000 gallons of water running down that wall every year.

All that water does make for a prime habitable location for any lichen, though.

Obviously, I need to fix the gutters, the grade, and the diversion (the downspout just dumps from 18 inches above the ground, instead of diverting away from the foundation). Diverting the water away from the house will fix most of the problem; correcting the damage comes after that.

The debate among inspectors is important: some of them write up lichen as "moss growing on foundation wall; remove moss, scrub area with bleach." Others write up lichen as "moss growing on foundation wall; remove moss, monitor for potential moisture problems." The difference being one group sees moss as a damaging problem, while the other sees moss as a consequence of some other, less visible problem.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Good luck with the project. It'll be interesting to see and keep the thread updated with pictures if you can.


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## websnooper (Jan 16, 2012)

bluefoxicy said:


> Oh. Okay, that's closer. Just have to strike the 'to' and it's a proper English sentence. I was trying all kinds of combinations of commas and missing words.


So let me get this straight...you are posting in here and trying to get free feedback from professionals and then you effectively insult them by claiming their grammar is incorrect. 

Amazing to put it mildly.

I guess all the building scientists are incorrect as well. Go ahead and correct Joe Lstiburek's English and see what what kind of response you get.

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-106-understanding-vapor-barriers

_*Figure 6: Frame Wall With Cavity Insulation and Brick or Stone Veneer*_​​_Applicability – Limited to mixed-humid, hot-humid, mixed-dry, hot-dry and marine regions – can be used with hygro-thermal analysis in some areas in cold regions (Zone 5, but not Zone 6; see *Side Bar 2*)- should not be used in very cold and subarctic/arctic regions_​_ This wall is a flow through assembly – it can *dry to* both the exterior and the interior._


http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com...usses-basement-insulation-and-vapor-retarders

_Here’s what I wrote in response to Baumgarten’s question: “I have puzzled through the same question, and I have concluded that there is no reason for a foundation wall to dry to the interior, in spite of what you sometimes read. Walls insulated on the interior with closed-cell spray foam perform very well — and they certainly don’t *dry to* the interior.”_


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

websnooper said:


> So let me get this straight...you are posting in here and trying to get free feedback from professionals and then you effectively insult them by claiming their grammar is incorrect.


Well if you lot wanted to sound like professionals, you ought speak the Queen's English right proper.

Also, if you find having your command of language questioned an insult, you are a sorrowful person. Criticism is often unpleasant, but necessary; it performs the same function as pain in the body: it draws attention to an unhealthy state of things.

All current communications theory assumes failures in communication are the fault of the speaker. It is the speaker's job to select appropriate language, to use the language properly, and to adjust for the level of knowledge of the listener. I find two considerations on hand about this point:


The original response had a typographical error which was non-obvious. It was a sentence fragment given in response to a large number of statements, but without reference to which statement it addressed. It erroneously indicated an arbitrary member of a set ("any") rather than using a conjunction ("and")--which itself was erroneously placed at the beginning of a sentence (conjunctions don't do that).
No amount of Googling turns up the term "dry to" as used here with an explanation; the vast majority of results are irrelevant, and obvious errors made by non-native English speakers. Thus, if this is a technical term, it is not documented anywhere readily reachable.

Syntax and the use of jargon are primary concerns when discussing communications. In this case, the apparent jargon is still readily parsed, so not a concern; although the meaning interpreted by an unfamiliar listener adjusting the sentence may be different than the intended meaning. So maybe if there were a glossary of sorts somewhere, life would be a little less unpleasant. Unfortunately, while I can punch "rheostat" into Google and find out you mean some sort of potentiometer, I can't punch "dry to" into Google and get useful results, so the Internet didn't come with a ready-made glossary.

I'm pretty sure I'm paying for Google to know everything, somehow. It's got to be a line-item in my bill.

It doesn't help that text conveys about 7% of what's being said. When you talk to a person, 38% of the meaning conveyed is vocal--the way you speak--and 55% is non-vocal--everything else you do while speaking--while 7% is actually verbal. This allows people to work together without a common language in strikingly competent capacity, although it is annoying when you have to build a bridge with a Japanese man and you don't know Japanese _at all_. (Good time to learn.)

An amusing but unrelated point: the speaker-burden theory of communications is so non-obvious that people tend to assume foreigners are too stupid to understand them when they don't know a language well. It hardly occurs to most people that maybe they're not speaking clear {German,French,Korean} when visiting a country, as they assume the other party can figure out what they mean.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

I didn't take any offense to the original post so perhaps we should get back on topic.


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Windows on Wash said:


> I didn't take any offense to the original post so perhaps we should get back on topic.


I was mostly making a joke at Websnooper's expense, because I've forgotten what the point of posting was in the first place. I didn't actually ask a question, don't know what I expected.


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## websnooper (Jan 16, 2012)

bluefoxicy said:


> Well if you lot wanted to sound like professionals, you ought speak the Queen's English right proper.
> 
> Also, if you find having your command of language questioned an insult, you are a sorrowful person. Criticism is often unpleasant, but necessary; it performs the same function as pain in the body: it draws attention to an unhealthy state of things.
> 
> ...


You just made my point for me...again. 

I don't think anyone that offers their advice should expect criticism in return (regardless of whether or not you are correct and they might be...as you have yet to demonstrate that to me...grammatically incorrect). Why don't you just thank someone for sharing their expertise and time about a subject matter that you have no dealing or experience in.

I think the poster mentioned that he answered from his cell phone. Cut him some slack for crying out loud as he/she clarified their early remarks. Instead of a thank you, you choose to insult his English.

Congrats...you are separating yourself from the pack when it comes to being unappreciative. 

By the way, if you think a "mastery" of the English language somehow indicates a higher state for professionalism in the trades...you are quite wrong. I am not suggesting you contract with someone that cannot spell "cat", but you obviously have zero to little dealings with true professionals in the trades. 

I can think of handful that are brilliant artisans that would probably get their writings picked apart if in a similar situation. They also wouldn't work for you because you appear to be, at least in this exchange, completely devoid of any humility which usually makes for a terrible client. 

That combined with your argumentative nature would throw up a million red flags for most professionals. 

Good luck with your project though and the moss insulation idea. When you have mold growing in the walls of the block is falling apart, be sure to use proper grammar when you are swearing.


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

websnooper said:


> When you have mold growing in the walls of the block is falling apart, be sure to use proper grammar when you are swearing.


Irony.

Also, I'm well aware of what environments are conducive to black mold (everywhere) and stachybotrys (on wood or paper). I need 10mg of Loratadine every day after my landlord's contractors damaged the plumbing in my apartment while fixing the apartment below. When alerted to the mold issue, they simply put new sheet rock over the infested area and painted. Two years of constant exposure apparently developed an allergy, which is still bothering me in my house (due to wet basement issues--there is mold and plywood).

By the way, I'm also putting a bee hive right next to that wall. I'll prepare the swearwords for when the bees infest the wall and I have to dig out the hives, too.


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## bluefoxicy (Nov 5, 2012)

Windows on Wash said:


> It'll be interesting to see and keep the thread updated with pictures if you can.


I'll have to make some decisions about _how_ to do it first. The moss may require more shade than I'm expecting, so I may need the trees in place first. Not sure if it'll stick on its own.

There are a few places selling mats intended to adhere to cement walls and hold on moss covering:










Porous polypropylene mats, which absorb and retain more moisture to support the moss, accelerating growth.

The manufacturer recommends an adhesive to attach to concrete walls. Loc-Tite's permanent construction adhesives variably say to not use where continuously wet, or to not use on polypropylene; I can't find one that recommends use to bond porous polypropylene to porous surfaces where continuously subjected to moisture.


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## Eliving.space (Aug 18, 2016)

It's great what you've done! I look for a long time any information about using moss for outside insulation and it almost nothing. Mostly people writing just negative posts but have no reall experience. Is it really problem with insects? 
I also plane to use this technology. how rains in autumn influes on insulation characteristics? Thank you very much for your information! Sorry for my not native english.
Please make pictures visiable again.


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