I can relate to the frustrations that Ed has encountered during the building of his home. Many of the same issues that Ed encountered around labor and papercrete have also happened to me. A few lessons that I've learned through Ed and based on my own experience are below.
1. You the owner builder need to do everything possible on your own. No pointing fingers. A 7 day work week, no vacations, and laboring through injuries, bad weather, and sickness are critical when trying to complete a project.
2. Working with the city, electricians, plumbers can be dangerous to timelines. There are ways to work with these people and make a project legal. If the electrician doesn't show pull the wire yourself, if the plumber is on another job get out your PEX tools. Seriously, pay these people to pull the permits. If they don't show don't let that ruin your project.
3. Got $$$? You better have some cash. Going to a bank for step by step financing on a material with a large learning curve like papercrete is risky. The material itself may be cheap, but unexpected costs while building add up. Especially if there is paid labor involved or the US dollar is tanking due to rapid inflation.
4. Out of time? Timelines while building are difficult to estimate. With a experimental material expect many small failures. If it is a first time project expect it to take roughly forever. The second one will be exponentially faster. By the time you hit the third or fourth identical project you will just say "two weeks" whenever someone wants to know how long it will take.
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