Hello group!
I have visited with Mike McCain of Columbus, NM (Valley of the Sun) and he is against compressing the blocks as this process squeezes out the air pockets (less insulation) and worse, if the wall gets wet you will have a very big problem as the bricks will do their best to regain their original cast size. He has some extremely compressed blocks for display that mimic red clay pavers, but he will not use them. I have to admit they sure look pretty.
We had a terrible flood here in the Radium Springs, NM area a few years back and my neighbor Gordon Solberg got hit really hard. His papercrete office had 4 feet of water in it. He was worried that the lower part wall would squish out, but it held beautifully. You can still see the high water mark. He was glad he did not use compressed blocks!
I think the rough finish on uncompressed blocks will hold plaster much better than compressed blocks, and if you spray it on (pre moisten the wall) you shoudn't need any chicken wire or metal lath. Check out: www.mortarsprayer.com.
Keep up the great work everyone!!
Guy Floyd
Hi Ernie,
I didn't mean to make such a stir. I have done no testing other than the block making I accomplished last summer. As you mentioned, increased insulation qualities seem counterintuitive in a compressed block and that is why I even mentioned it. I spent some time pressing the water out of my forms (by hand) hoping to speed up the handling stage and to try to eliminate some of the uneven shrinkage I was getting. What I found was that light pressure took care of neither of these problems. When you are right in the middle of a project that has a timeline is not where one normally does any comprehensive testing. Maybe next summer I will devote time to some testing. Mulling this issue over just brought up another thought, does the stucco adhere as well to the compressed block as it does to the uneven surface of an uncompressed block that generally makes uneven rough surfaces for adhesion?
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