Monday, July 7, 2008

[papercreters] Ed Conley - Silver City Papercrete Home

I have some sad news about a high profile papercrete home in Silver City. Ed Conley who had been working on a 2000 sq. ft papercrete home for the last year on has given up on the project. I asked his permission to send a e-mail to the papercreters mailing list so that others could learn from his experience. I've visited the home before and been impressed at how beautiful it had come out. Sadly the mold, stucco, and electrical issues along with all the labor and financing problems have ended the project. I have no idea what will become of the home as the bank takes possession of it.


Below is a letter from Ed explaining his frustration. 

Begin forwarded message:

Date: June 28, 2008 7:09:35 AM MDT
To: "Mikey Sklar" <sklarm@screwdecaf.cx>
Subject: Re: Columbus we have a problem

Mikey,
I am so disgusted with the outcome of the "final" part of this project that I have no choice but to walk away completely for the sake of my mental and physical well being.
This house has consumed my entire life for over a year now and in spite of some great successes and encouraging spurts of progress, the over all process has been trying and impossible at times. I'm not usually a quitter, but in this case feel that the stress and despair around trying to make it work will continue for a long time and I am not willing to have a total meltdown because of a house.
The violations were all screw ups, or just nit picky by the book violations, but at the same time costly and time consuming. The person doing the electrical has basically held this project up and delayed the completion by at least four months, and frankly I don't foresee the corrections being completed for weeks further exasperating my financial problems. As I said, the bank has already reported me being in default of the building loan and offered no support in finding a solution. Bottom line is they want their money now.So, bankruptcy is an option I am considering at this point.I am going to visit my family in Tucson for a week and getting an MRI on my back to see how extensive my spinal condition is. All I know is that I feel a great sense of relief not having to spend 12 hours a day, seven days a week toiling on an endless money pit.
I chose papercrete from the beginning because I was convinced it was the most economical,energy efficient, relatively simple way to build.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the people that convinced me of it were nothing more than snake oil salesmen with a line of bullshit and a convincing rap that gave me a false sense of confidence in their expertise and conviciton.
I can't totally blame them since I blindly trusted them and should have recognized some red flags in the process, but my desire to build my own home, one that would be a model for others outweighed common sense and reality on many levels. Those factors combined with the lack of a skilled work force and my own miscalculations created a run away train that I had to finally jump off of before it wrecked completely.
I must say though, the experience and knowledge I have gained will be a wealth of resources for anyone considering this method of building.
I still have confidence in the concept, but know that you have to be careful of who you are dealing with. I bought it hook,line and sinker because Willy was my friend and supposedly had built at least eight other papercrete houses, more that anyone else I knew of and after all he was a friend and would be watching out for me. That was a wrong assumption and unrealistic way of doing business as the entire process was pretty much a "gentleman's agreement" and in spite of my repeated requests for estimates and invoices from the people doing the plumbing and electrical, was never clear as to the true cost of anything. Just wanting to complete the project in a timely manner, let it slip by the wayside and lost control of it.
I am in no way trying to finger point my way out of this mess, since I am just as responsible on many levels but just needed to shed some light on the picture as it was painted. As for now, I will enjoy the freedom of not having to wake up another day with the frustrating and sometimes futile task of keeping a project alive that needed more than a little CPR.
In retrospect these expensive and hard lessons are good content for a book or video.
I plan to share my experiences with any and all who are toying with the idea of building this way.

Ed  



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at 6:02 PM