Papercreters: [papercreters] Greetings from Silver City

Monday, July 21, 2008

[papercreters] Greetings from Silver City

Hello fellow papercreter's,

After giving Mikey Sklar permission to post my emails that I sent him on your group
message board, I decided that I should see for myself what the group is all about.
Since the "Ed Conley project" has been part of discussions, I felt it only proper to join the
group and interact directly.
My situation has been one of exasperation,frustration and disappointment overall.
I've already heard all of the "shoulda,coulda,woulda" advice and know where I screwed up
so please spare me from more.
As for the size of the house, 2010 square feet, the actual footprint is only 30'X40', with a
30X16 loft and a 30X12 basement. It is an open floor plan chosen for my particular life
style, I like to have gatherings, discussion groups,and play music, so the size was perfect
for that, not withstanding would demonstrate papercrete could be used for much more
than cabins, or sheds.
I thought from the beginning that I had adequately researched papercrete and was
convinced that cost wise, ease of construction, energy efficiency and environmental factors
warranted using it in my home.
Unfortunately, I bought the hype and smooth talk from someone whom I was convinced
was an expert, especially since he was celebrated by the hype of some of the papercrete
community and had books and videos on the subject.
I agree that I should have joined this group long ago and may have been able to avoid
some of the problems I encountered. I did, however; go to living in paper.com and other
sources for gaining information, so I didn't just totally jump in without any information at
all.
We also have the honor of having Eric Patterson here locally. Problem is Eric is busy full
time with his printing business, otherwise I would have had him more involved from the
beginning. If he had been able to manufacture enough blocks for me I surely would have
bought them from him.
My project was unique in many ways.
First of all it was in a historic, downtown neighborhood, which in it self presented some
challenges since my design was subject to approval of the Historic review committee in
addition to review by the building inspector. Further, the design was reviewed by an
architect friend of mine and everything seemed totally fine.
Next, I had to convince a local bank to take a chance on giving me a building loan, hence
the compressed time factor in order to complete the project with in a year.
I live on my VA disability and social security and don't have deep pockets to draw from to
finance a project for many years.
From day one, I requested some engineering tests on the blocks I was purchasing, but was
always put off, told that they had a test somewhere.
The blocks I bought, besides not uniform, appeared to be less stable that the ones that
Eric Patterson was making on a very limited basis, but was assured that they were
structurally sound and could easily be made to work, since all one had to do was use"
extra mortar" to level them. I expressed my concern as to the astethics of them, knowing
full well that builders of stick houses would frequently drive by and asses my project.
Actually the blocks were originally purchased by the people I bought the land from and
were part of the land deal.
Having limited knowledge and experience in building,especially with papercrete, was at
the mercy of the people I purchased the blocks from. After all, they had completed
numerous building projects, many of them that I saw first hand.
The finished products ranged from the marginal, to the very nice and I bought into the
ideal that my project would be a model for substantial, beautiful building unlike some of
the "hippie houses" that I had seen.
The blocks were over two years old and very dry when they delivered the first load.
Meantime the clock is ticking away and I am paying 8.5% interest on a building loan.
Then the task of finding and keeping workers, none of whom had experience with
papercrete, so I depended fully on the one guy that had experience to not only work, but
train at the same time. So, as you can see things soon began to get out of control.
There is more than enough blame to go around for everyone and I don't want to portray
myself as a victim so much as an ill informed optimist that kept on in spite of some red
flags. Had I been able to pay a project manager, I'm sure things would have been done
differently, but it still could not have changed the fact that the basic
factors, blocks poorly manufactured, and a hap hazard technique of putting it all together
probably would have produced the same results in the end.
In closing, I'd just like to say that papercrete is an amazing product and can and should
continue to be explored.
I hope my mistakes can be of some benefit to the over all community and I am willing to
speak to anyone wishing to ask me questions.
Thank you all for your dedication and spirit of pioneering.
Ed Conley
Silver City, New Mexico