I received a private email asking me what I thought of Clyde's
recipe, and I think I should respond publicly.
I have a great deal of confidence that Clyde knows what he is doing,
and therefore I'm confident that the recipe works very well.
I appreciate Clyde's efforts and accomplishments greatly. His photos
speak for themselves. I particularly appreciate his willingness to
describe his recipe and construction methods. Everyone should
appreciate that.
I personally have not yet mixed up a batch of Clyde's mix, so that
makes it really difficult for me to comment intelligently on it in
detail. I won't try. I have a few guesses in the back of my mind
about how it likely compares to other recipes, but they are just
guesses. It would be irresponsible for me to toss around my guesses
haphazardly. I want to mix up some of Clyde's mix for myself and see
exactly what its characteristics are. There are also a lot of other
recipes I want to play with. I simply haven't had the time lately.
Clyde's intentions appear clear in his previous post. He would like
to see everyone building structures that strong and safe. While I
would not pretend to read Clyde's mind, I seriously doubt that his
real intentions were to claim that other simple papercrete recipes
are DESIGNED TO CREATE a fire.
While the technical definition of "incendiary" clearly indicates a
material that is specifically designed to start a fire, I interpret
Clyde's use of the term much differently. It appears to me that he
was attempting to stress what he feels are the important differences
between his version of papercrete and the typical simple versions
that many use. In my opinion, he was stressing that his version is
DRASTICALLY less combustable, and therefore a lot safer to live in.
Just by looking at the ingredients Clyde uses, I'm reasonably
confident that it would handle fire extremely well. If anyone thinks
Clyde is trying to accuse others of intentionally building a
structure that is designed to burn up and kill someone, they are
taking his comments FAR TO LITERALLY. That would be murder and I'm
extremely confident that WAS NOT what he was trying to imply.
In my opinion, even the very poor papercrete recipies that can get
exposed to fire and smolder for days and days are far safer than the
wooden tinderboxes that are standard construction for most areas. I
think Rabble shared a story about a wood stove at Pantilocpom that
started a section wall burning during the construction process. The
wall smoldered along so slowly that it was easy to put out without
much real danger. Typical stick construction can go from small spark
to raging inferno in one or two minutes. I am positive I would
rather live in a papercrete structure in a fire prone situation than
the typical wooden structures that are usually built today.
Clyde wants us all to improve what we are doing and build better and
safer structures. This should be a goal that we all share. I will
state with a great deal of conviction that I share Clyde's goal of
improvement. I want to learn more and get better at all things I do,
especially construction, particularly papercrete construction.
I have been privately asked, "Is Clyde's mix really better than
mine?" The most direct answer I can give to that question is, "I
don't know." To make an objective comparison I would need to have
mixed both recipies in question and performed tests to see.
It also would be important to define what "best" is. To one person,
best might mean, "strongest". Another person might think "best"
means "easiest to find the ingredients and mix up". I'm confident
there are plenty of individuals that might define "best" as "the
least expensive that will perform the job". There might be as many
definitions of "best" in this context as we have members of
Papercreters. This is not a bad thing. It's to be expected. We all
have different personal goals. I have yet to see two papercrete
structures that are identical, and I like that.
I would also like to say that after mixing up and testing the various
batches of papercrete that I have, I'm confident that Clyde's mix is
a very good one, and I would not discourage anyone from considering
it to build any conventional home. Whether it is "best" for you? I
suggest mixing up a bucket for yourself and see what you think. When
yo do, don't hesitate to post what you learn here for all of us to
read.
I hope this helps.
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "clydetcurry" <clyde@...> wrote:
>
> ---I hope folks will banter this one around for a while - My ratio
of
> cement paste to paper is on the order of 3 lbs of cement / 1 lb of
> paper - the correct discriptors in the masonry industry would be 3
> sacks per yard- 2 are portland and 1 is metakaolin pozzalon - to
this
> I add 4 times that volumetric amount in perlite (making 15 sacks per
> yard of cement paste) the minimum Ive seen pass a burn test was 3.5
> sacks per yard - bare papercrete (paper & portland)holds too much
> water- the pozzalon reacts the excess calcium carbonate
> (lime)liberated in the all to chaotic portland and it no longer
holds
> water - the perlite extends the cement paste, which wraps around the
> paper (strength and fire resistance), saving on Portland (CO2
> evolution and cost). We add additional perlite (filler) to
stabilize
> for shrinkage - I'm hoping you will respect the 750 tests I have
made
> and morph to these understandings - I personally warrentee that I
have
> obtained exceptional performance this way - I am very concerned that
> the old timers will resist these notions- still I am convinced that
a
> 1/1 mixture is insendiary - lets not kill people - do more homework-
> Best Wishes Clyde T. Curry www.evesgarden.orgIn
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