James, we live in North Central West Virginia -- where it is warm to
hot - mostly humid - in the summer, and wet and cold in the winter.
Our papercrete house has both new and old construction features. We
are pouring new walls and insulating existing walls.
Our walls have survived one winter, two springs, and are in our second
summer. In the summer, the temperature inside is noticably cooler
(even though construction is still underway) and in the winter, we
used a small wood burning stove to heat the entire house (1200 square
feet). Even though one side was virtually bare naked (without
papercrete) last winter, we stayed reasonably warm.
This winter will be the true test of our stove with help from the
greenouse window we built on the southern side for passive solar assist!
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "operationschief77"
<operationschief77@...> wrote:
>
> Good Day!
>
> I have no real experience with papercrete but I do have experience
> with stucco and construction in general. Having perused the web I
> have come to the conclusion that either most papercrete creations are
> in dry climates or the people posting info are.
> As well it seems that most papercrete building is 'new home'
> construction rather than applying these techniques to existing
> homes. With that said I am hoping that I am not alone in my desire
> to find some good advice here on how to move forward with
> incorporating papercrete into an existing home. My family and I live
> in southern Alberta, Canada which is still many miles north of where
> much of the papercrete work seems to be focused. With that said this
> is my intention as of right now. We live in a thousand sqft home
> with a basement of approximately similar dimensions. There is an
> exisitng concrete basement that is eight feet deep. This basement
> does not have any insulation nor does it have a concrete floor. What
> I intend to do is 'pour' a papercrete slab to approximately 4" depth,
> run an in floor heating line above that and then top it off with clay
> flooring. As for the walls I have a couple of possibilities in
> mind. Due to the insulative nature of papercrete I could spray
> progressive layers of high paper, papercrete directly onto the
> exisitng concrete walls. Another technique I am thinking about using
> is 'harling' the mixture on the wall until I have the desired
> thickness. These 2 techniques have the advantage of trapping air in
> the mixture as it is being applied therefore adding to the insulting
> effect. The other method would be to simply trowel the mixture on in
> a couple of brown coats until the right thickness is achieved. My
> questions are simple ones, firstly anyone try this before? Two, how
> does papercrete bond to existing concrete? I know with stucco
> spalling can occur so for that reason I usually add some Elmer's glue
> and extra lime, very sticky and haven't lost a parging yet. Mikey
> Sklar has suggested a couple of cups of old latex paint. The most
> pressing question is to what thickness can one go when attaching
> papercrete to existing concrete? My concern here is the papercrete
> not having the necesary structral integrity to support its own weight
> and will then come off in chunks. A few ideas have been to attach
> chicken wire to the concrete much as you would in applying stucco to
> a wall. Or perhaps run nails into the wall and then weave willow
> branches through them to form a kind of rebar structure. We are
> motivated by trying to use all locally available resources.
> Ultimately I think I am going to try them all and see which works.
> If can prove an effective method for binding papercrete to concrete I
> can then add this to my available options for my customers who are
> looking for more'green' building techniques. Next time I will
> describe how I intend to turn an old hot tub into a papercrete
> mixer. Thanks for any input you may have.
>
> James
>
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