Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Re: [papercreters] Re: PC insulating board -mix question

When I built my battery room dome the primary lessons I learned were:


1. Papercrete is a warm weather / dry weather sport. When doing thick walls get it all done during spring/summer/fall. I went into the winter and that greatly slowed down drying.

2. I did a thin layer of papercrete (one spray coat) both inside and outside the dome after pumping it full. I should have done 3 coats. Trowling only the final one. This would reduce cracking and give a much strong exterior/interior.

3. My lime wash I am still figuring out. Basically keep it thin when using the lime wash pool coat (1 part white portland / 1 part lime) as a slurry. The lime wash is probably best applied with a roller which leaves a thin coat. Otherwise cracking is common.

4. build a rebar ladder into the dome to make getting on top easier. It was a hassle to drag scaffolding around.

Things that worked well on the dome were:

1. welding rebar is fast, and reasonably strong - one person job

2. a pneumatic hog ring gun was critical to getting a dome up fast, we were hanging 14 sheets of diamond lath a day with the gun. Only four sheets without.

3. the trash pump worked out, took me a while to get a 9HP motor pump. I'm skeptical of smaller pumps.

4. spraying has been great, vertical sprayer and side style tirolessas were both utilized.

5. starting small with a 10' diameter dome was nice. We didn't make any BIG mistakes on our first go around. 

On May 27, 2008, at 11:59 AM, ElfNori wrote:

<nods>
 
What significant things did you learn building your dome?  If you were going to do it again, what would you do differently?
 
I ask because what you did is close to what I want to do . . .
 
ElfN
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: [papercreters] Re: PC insulating board -mix question

Drapped cloth or forms might have brought the costs down a lot. If one person can do the work alone that is where the real savings is. As soon as two people are needed all savings are lost. 

I currently just build everything from rebar, add remesh, then lath and can do it all on my own. That has been a tremendous savings despite the materials being a bit more expensive.

On May 27, 2008, at 11:46 AM, ElfNori wrote:

Mikey, what would the expense have been if you'd drapped netting and sprayed or used forms to pour or . . . ?
 
ElfN
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:40 AM
Subject: Re: [papercreters] Re: PC insulating board -mix question

Yes, my 300' fence cost me just under $10,000 so about $33 a running foot to build from papercrete panels. $5,000 was spent on labor. The other $5,000 was lag screws, self tapping screws, rail ties, framing studs, portland cement, and concrete. 







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