Calle, I am so sorry to hear of your situation.
The reason I chose papercrete over other methods was comparative labor and cost. Papercrete can be backbreaking but it does not need to be. Right after a good mixer you need a good pump, a real trash rated pump that will run close to $1,000 new. Eliminate the need to lift heavy papercrete and the job becomes really manageable. Slip forms or regular forms so you can cast in place using a pump will accomplish that.
There is no need to make a wall or roof the same consistency throughout. You can make a core of "light" papercrete with less mineral content, portland cement, and get better insulation. Cover/coat the core with "heavy" papercrete with lots of portland cement and other minerals you like for a fireproof coating. You can save a lot of money with this method.
I have seen videos of tests where a propane torch was applied to heavy papercrete without causing a fire, and propane torches can produce up to about 3,600F. A properly built papercrete structure might have survived your fire. IMHO a stick house is very inferior to papercrete in just about all ways. How long do you imagine one would last at the temperatures you experienced?
When I decided to build underground, we used a bobcat and I learned to operate it. It was actually fun, sort of like a reality video game with the joystick controls. It took a week (five days) to dig my hole, mostly because the spot I chose turned to caliche a couple of feet down so we were digging low grade limestone. With softer dirt it would not have taken nearly as long. Even renting a bobcat at a couple of hundred dollars a day, that is only a thousand dollars and I used about a hundred dollars in diesel. I'm no spring chicken, social security is paying for my projects nowadays.
Hi all,
After our life changing forest, canyon, range fire not sure if I would ever trust papercrete as our fire burnt between 3000/4000 degrees according to the rangers.
But using a 3/1.....4/1 mixture of portland to.paper makes it very expensive for us. The thing that had attracted me was a lower cost product compared to the machines soil mixture demanded by Rammed Earth.
Our earth bags have fallen and they needed an additional coat of adobecrete.
Until we find a very lowcost method we will not build.
As we all age strenuous hard labor is a no go.
Or is much easier to stick build.
I.do not like stick houses but those earth bags are darn heavy and filling them with a number #10 can is totally stupid. It would take you a year to do one wall if you work 12/14 hour days and drive. 1.5 hours each way to work.
Alternative is in.my heart but when some jerk comes and gives you a $53,000.00 bid to dig a hole to build an under ground house something is wrong.
Charging $100 per hour is beyond our means.
When a home needs to be your business and your home a green house a place for live stock it can not be like LaMars 450-600 squad fro cabin for four people etc.
We have not one piece of equipment to do any of the work.
To get it serviced means a 1-4 hour drive one way. To spend the gas rent a flatbed for. 50 a mile is not practical or financially within our means.
How do you all do it?
We have been working on our place for going on nine yrs and now it is 100% loss.
So starting over is worse than heartbreaking.
Cheaper not backbreaking and doable in a yrs time is what we need.
Calle
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