Re the info you are looking for, the strength of the string you can test by hanging weights on it. but it's a lot more than the lift of a balloon.
The balloon lift depends on the size. The common size seems to be 12 inches in diameter.
that is 6 inch radius, which is 0.15 meter.
volume is ?/?πr3 or ?/?π(0.15)3 = 0.006 m3
lift you can calculate from the differences in density between helium (I'm assuming helium is used) and air
Density of Air 1.164 kg/m3
Density of Helium 0.18 kg/m3
subtract the two and yoy get about 1 kg/m3
so a 0.006 m3 balloon would provide a lift of 0.006 kg or about 0.01 US pounds.
Take the weight of a house at 50000 lb, then you need 50000/0.01 = 5000000 or 5 million balloons
Aside from the engineering, which has been answered by the engineers, I'll add that a guy in LA famously flew a lawn chair with helium balloons. He went up to 10,000 feet or more and they called out the air force because he was a UFO. He had some sandwiches and a BB gun so he could get back down again. I just thought it might help with your story. Some things CAN be done but not a whole house. Sorry I don't remember the details but Google will find it. It's a true, famous story here in California.
People move houses all the time, but they insert metal frames underneath and jack them up.
I'm not sure a typical US house would be strong enough to be lifted from above. But maybe, for a small house built on a crawlspace. Some historic houses were overbuilt by amateurs, like maybe a ship-builder who built their own house.
I estimate the house in Up at about 800 square feet, which would be about 48,000kg at 275lbs/sqft.
There are balloons used for yarding (removing trees during logging) with a lift capacity of 18,000kg
Not enough, but not ridiculously so - it would only take 3 balloons like that.
I forget exactly how the strings worked (years since I saw the movie) but it looks like they come down the chimney, so could be secured to the floor joists under the kitchen, not the brickwork of the chimney, which as you say would not withstand much tensile force..
(Some house movers now require that masonry chimneys be removed prior to moving, and that would certainly add to the weight of the house...)
The total volume of balloons looks like about 200ft diameter. If I got the math right that might lift about 120,000kg. Which would be more than enough.
So maybe the basic premise is not so ridiculous. I suspect someone at Pixar did the sums. More to the point, how was he going to inflate 20,000 balloons and keep track of all the strings ?
Mr. Ebeneezer Scrooge (I presume?)
Where have you been?
The UP house is a licensed experimental aircraft.
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play...
The "UP" house can fly, and more importantly; middle school students
would rather learn what's possible than what's not.
Disposable helium tanks (starting at about $25 US) hold 14.9 ft3 Helium.
14.9ft3 × m3/35.31467ft3 = .42192 m3
.42192m3 × 1kg/m3 = .42192 kg = .93 lb lift
1 ft3 = 7.48 gallons, 14.9ft3 = 111.5 gallons = 4 33 gallon trash bags.
For about US Dollars $30 you can find a doll house to lift
with four garbage bags of Helium.
I am doing a presentation for middle school girls at a summer camp in a week. We are proving why pixar's Up does not really work. I am trying to gather some data, but am having trouble finding certain things on the internet.
-The strength of balloon string
-the lifting force of a helium party balloon
-the weight of a standard (probably older) House (neglecting furniture is fine)
-Strength of the foundation (or the lifting force needed to pull a house from it's foundation
I would appreciate if You could cite references, so that I can provide them to my Boss, and we know we aren't giving kids inaccurate information.
Also, if you have any other ideas on what I can point out as to why it does not work, I am open to ideas. i plan to point out that all the balloons were connected to the chimney, which would not support the full house, and that the stress would potentially cause the house to break apart, but I do not plan to go into the engineering and physics behind this, as i do not want to overwhelm them. I want to stick to basic F=ma type stuff.
