building barns, sheds, houses - almost free

[Dachshund]

Thanks for the info, Doug! I'll have to check it out!

 

[Doug_Myerscough]

A little more about waterproofing - as you can see in the pictures, two of the pictures are a pond and an indoor swimming pool made out of papercrete - these were built about five years ago and have had no problems at all - regular swimming pool sealant was used and it can be used to paint exteriors of houses and barns as well. The biggest problem those of you in wet climates will have with papercrete is water wicking up from the ground - you'll need to pour perimeter concrete foundations and seal the top of the concrete with any kind of waterproof barrier to keep the wicking from happening.
The stucco you see on these structures is papercrete. Papercrete blocks were stacked and mortered with papercrete slurry then smeared with more papercrete - no metal mesh is needed, papercrete mixtures for stuccoing are a little different than the mix you'll make the blocks out of but not much.
Tensil and compression strength of papercrete depends primarily on how much portland cement you add - compression strength of papercrete is higher than concrete, tensil strength is lower. The higher the amount of portland you use the stronger it will be. Mixtures with as little as 1 bag of portland per 200 gallons of mix - water slurry will hold together very well.
Different people have experimented with different mixtures - Clyde Curry in Marathon Texas adds styrofoam beads to ad more insulation and uses very high concentrations of portland cement for strength. The more portland you add, the stronger it is but also the less insulation it provides - a good mix will have about R-2 per inch.

 

[Doug_Myerscough]

Since enough folks seem to be interested, I'll keep posting info on this stuff until I exhaust my limited knowledge (that won't take long /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif) Here's a little note on construction - you don't need to header doors or windows. You can build solid walls and cut out the doors and windows with a chainsaw. Arched doors and windows are much stronger than flat cuts - you might want to insert some wood headers after the fact if you want an extremely wide opening like for a garage door. This is an especially easy way when building domes.
To build a dome, put a stake down in the dead center of the dome at the height of sidewalls - put an eye screw in the top of the stake. Tie a string to the loop that goes exactly to the inside of your sidewalls and use it for a guide - as you go up the dome the string will automatically bring your blocks exactly where they need to be. Papercrete domes are self supporting and strong as anything - they'll probably be the only thing standing after a tornado.

 

[Doug_Myerscough]

here's a few pics of various papercrete stuff

 

[HuckBB62]

I wonder if papercrete could be used for retaining wall blocks?

 

[Doug_Myerscough]

It can be but you will need to do a lot of waterproofing before you backfill - eventually waterlogging will degrade papercrete if not properly sealed.

 

[KiotiJohn]

Something that I would be interested in trying is to make an insulating slurry to blow on, paint on a concrete block house to add insulation. You mentioned that a different forumla slurry would be used for stucco. I would suppose that's what I would need, then blow it on? I would think I could do this in several layers to add more insulation. What do you think Doug?
John

 

[Doug_Myerscough]

Yes - you can make a slurry using little or no portland cement and adding boric acid to help in fireproofing and use it as blow on insulation for metal buildings. You will need to put up chicken wire to give it something to stick to and paint with latex after it is dryed to further help in fireproofing.

 

[lorax]

I saw that blocks were usually dried in the sun in arid limates. However in wet climates this may take longer or be harder during the rainy season. Can you also use a (solar) oven or do you know of any other methods?

 

[LBrown59]

Welcome to TBN Doug. Thanks for the links. This sounds interesting. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Are you still around?