I am glad to see some people coming onto this forum who are of the notion that all the building regs and other restrictions to a free life in this country are an unneccessay evil and are at least tossing around ideas about what might be done to correct the situation. I am sick and tired of hearing this notion that the building regulations and codes are for our "protection" when in reality they are only good for the people who are sucked into the system, i.e., county officials, building inspectors, septic installers and all the other brothers in law types who benefit and make their living from people who just want to go about their lives without a lot of outside meddling and interference. I am not against paying taxes, just against taxes levied in the form of building permit fees that are levied before you ever drive a nail. I am now living in Arizona which has been caught up in the growth and regulation syndrome for many years and in which I cannot legally build with papercrete or anything that deviates from the stick build mentality. And of course which requires the aforementioned building permit before you can even think about actually building. I was born and raised in Ziebach county South Dakota and they also have no building regulations of any kind and the system seems to work quite well there. I see your county in Nebraska is south of Winner S.D., I looked it up on the state counties map. It is good to see that there are still some areas of this once great land that will allow people to build and live their lives without someone looking over your shoulder and telling you how to do things and how to live. I am very seriously contemplating moving back to South Dakota for this very reason. Also, in the event of more serious economic problems it would likely be a better place to live than in an area where one is close by to several million people. In response to your questions about the uses for papercrete, from what I have done with it I think it would work fine in your area, you may want to have a roof overhang to keep the water off the walls. Here in Arizona in the low desert we don't get a lot of rain but what we get tends to come in the form of violent storms. The PC will absorb moisture but dries out quickly. I think the gumbo clay in the area of South Dakota where I came from would make great PC or even adobe which could be stuccoed and should be quite serviceable. As you mentioned, your grandparents lived in soddys which were nothing but blocks of soil stacked into a wall and made into a house, barn or whatever. The reason that soddies fell out of favor was not because they were not functional but because the social attitude of the times dictated that frame houses were more to be desired, and of course we see where that attitude has led the country. |
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