Starting with papercrete

[melwynnd]

We've decided to use papercrete to rebuild our trailer.  I wanted to just tear the whole wall out and build with pure papercrete, but my husband being the less adventurous of the two wants to clad the existing 2x4's with papercrete panels.  I let him win that one, but we are doing plain papercrete interior walls so I can have arched doorways .  The other condition was that I build a small garden shed first to perfect my forms and make the mistakes on that.

Anyway, I was afraid I'd have trouble getting enough paper.................

I got about 25 boxes of newspaper from the local newspaper.  Then I discovered that was only two weeks worth and that they'd love for me to come and get more!  I should have a small mountain's worth by spring!

Sherry

[glenn kangiser]

I understand that papercrete is pretty porous -water goes through it easily.  What are your plans toward waterproofing, Sherry-- Inside -no problem but exposed would be.

[Amanda_931]

Lime plaster?  

Around here they often put a pole barn type roof over the whole trailer, sometimes with a nice extension for a porch, overhangs around the rest.  You could do that as well.

I suddenly thought--oh, papercrete!

Last time I looked into it, it did require a fair amount of concrete.  Stories from the early days of papercrete of a pure papercrete block hit by a welding spark.  Didn't know anything was wrong until the next day when they tried to pick up--well, the ashes.

Do tests with your mixture.  And that might accidentally give you some waterproofing as well.

See what Kelly Hart did with his (in an awfully low rainfall area) I didn't see it on his site, but there are a bunch of links on down the page:

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/papercrete.htm

[melwynnd]

Hi guys  

I had a couple of ideas for waterproofing.  The first is to use Grailcoat, a commercial stucco on the outside.  The other(more probable) is to go ahead and stucco it with a high cement content papercrete and then paint it with the Dry loc(sp?) basement paint.  I found out you can get a tintable base and have it any color you want.  We are also going to extend the eaves of our roof out 1' on all sides and have nice gutters(nonexistant on a "regular" trailer house) to protect from as much weather as possible.  The advantage of building this while we are here in Wyoming is that we don't have much precip.  From what I understand, one of the major difficulties of papercrete isn't getting wet when the structure is finished, but keeping it dry while you are trying to get it cured in the forms.  I think this will be much easier in Wyoming than Minnesota.

We are going to try papercrete roofing panels too.  The old, leaky roof is coming completely off and we are going to put a shed-type roof on with the south wall 2' higher than the north.  I plan on covering them with 1" rigid foam insulation and a nice steel roof(green I think )

For the interior I am thinking earthen plaster or perhaps just plain sheetrock mud plastered on and then painted.   Either of these will help with fire retardance.  Pure papercrete is sort of like a charcol brickette when it burns.  

From my research, most people have been using a 50/50 by weight paper and cement formula for load bearing walls.  Since we aren't building load bearing walls, we may be able to get away with a bit less cement.  Of course this adds to the burnable factor.  But we are doing a small garden shed first so we can figure out what works best.  

My husband is building a pull-type mixer and we are considering pouring 4'x8' panels for walls and roof.  These may be too heavy to handle, but we'll see.  I'm going to edge my forms with 2x6's so the panels will push out 2".  The more insulation the better, but it can't be worse than it is now(drafty thing!).

By the way, does anyone have any suggestions on what to do with the mixer when we are done with it?

Sherry

P.S.  I just got some info on Rub-R-Slate, which is papercrete with asphalt emulsion rather than cement.  This is another possiblilty for waterproofing, but I wanted it for floors and countertops more than anything.

[Amanda_931]

You're going to want to make a couple of test bricks/panels anyway, so just try and burn them.

Pass/sell the mixer along to the next person who needs it!  

(or save it for your next project (a small business making planters out of rubber-slate?)