At 08:21 AM 11/14/2008 -0600, you wrote:
I was introduced to CEB - contracted to build a trade show and web set up for a $250K machine! Their point was to build 1 million blocks for large projects - then the machine was cost effective. The ram preasure was 250K - 1 block 15 seconds. The system worked just fine but was rebuilt after 1 million blocks. Good business idea if you can defeat the mud house image. I was then introduced to a series of smaller machines that did half blocks. This is not DIY! Finally the manual ram and DIY. 5-10K blocks needed for a house. Is possible if you are a serious DIY. This company was only interested in business. $12K machine was the DIY step they offered. I then computed the foundation cost - oops! The walls were only 20% of the cost of the house - oops! The numbers did not add up accept when the future utilities savings were discussed. The cost savings of the CEB block in the construction phase were overstated.
I am assuming that the forming of papercrete does not require a lot of preasure to achieve form, density and imediate handling. CEB likes a lot of preasure. As an artist I work with large scale paper mache press projects. That is why I looked at papercrete. My wife looked at papercrete as an outdoor paper mache. The little we have worked with papercrete - it is very close to paper mache. To press paper mache you need moderate preasure so you can improvise a system. Manual CEB press concept is fine for small projects - 12X24" thus far. The reason we chose to send CEB plans over seas instead of the machine was cost factor. My assumption was that metal workers are easy to find in 3rd world. The 3rd world metal workers are probably a lot more inventive that we are. If they have the concept they will adapt and build. I insisted that the idea be tested here. Two DIY welders built the CEB machine from plans. Tested in their backyard. 4 men mixed 5 yards of dirt/clay mix A picnic was arranged and 50 church families arrived to build blocks. The missionary directed all! Blocks were built with little effort. 3rd world style. These families were the core supporters that backed the 1 year project. 35 machine designs sent to Africa, South America and Central America. I have no idea what happened after that. No one documented beyond a few emails. But the missionary was very happy!
Papercrete apeals to my tree hugger heart. It is only possible when you have free paper? Questions to missionaries have turned up zero 3rd world interest because the paper resource is not valid for them? So this is a treehugger DIY for me. My original CEB house design calls for 5000 plus 12X14X3 blocks. The CEB block builder was reasonable. The foundation engineer was not. At every corner the assumption was I would buy a machine and become a block builder - no! One house and that is it. I joked about buying CEB at Home Depot and renting a small machine. Papercrete? Can you rent a mixing machine or press? Are blocks shipable? CEB is not. DIY? The point for me is to get 5000 plus blocks. Not design a machine or build a machine. My mission is to build my design
It would seem there is a market for rental equipment. If someone can design "idiot proof" mixers and presses for ceb and papercrete there are people who would rent them. The problem I see is the market is so small finding a cost effective advertising medium would be the problem,.
Finding main stream uses for the material would create a base to fund the growth. Dog houses seem a cool idea , particularly if you could create a forming system to allow them to be shipped and quickly reassembled by unskilled workers or the dog's humans. If boric acid will make it fire resistant then a mixture with a very high paper content might work very well to insulate pipe. if you could get enough pressure to force a fairly dry mix into a pvc pipe that would encase the water pipe.
On the website http://www.livinginpaper.com/ it says it can be treated and uses as pond making material.material. In that case you theoretically could simply lay a little slurry, lay the pipe., fill the trench and then cover it with dirt. That would be very cost efficient if it actually held up and you could convince enough people it would work.
Rice hulls would be perfect if you could up come with a system to install them . The paper would shrink to the pipe which is good and the hulls would shrink very little at all , assuming you could pack them tightly.
It seems the people in the Western States are more receptive to the idea and they are more spread out population wise so shipping blocks in much of the west is cost prohibitive. An eighteen wheeler load of 15 lbs blocks { I got that from http://www.livinginpaper.com/ for 10x4 x 14 blocks}would be around 3000 blocks . Figuring a minimum charge of 400.00 , a short run of less than 150 miles that is .13 cents a block assuming you have a forklift on the other end. Delivering block within a couple hundred miles is expensive but not a deal killer. All masonry is expensive to deliver. One idea that sounds good to me is making large quantities of papercrete with just paper and water + boric acid , let it dry, crush it and then bag it. Then the customer or their contractor could add water,sand, clay etc. and mix it in a common mortar or cement mixer and pour it into forms.
Whether that would be cheaper than just using cellulose insulation I do not know.
I wish I knew a lo more about this but I will probably learn it the way I seem o learn everything, hard slow , and expensively :}.
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