Re: [papercreters] Using papercrete under earthen floor

My thoughts and factors to consider:

 

Many floors are not insulated on the bottom because the earth provides heat storage.

 

An earthen floor of road base is not a massive amount of thermal mass.

 

A papercrete floor is extremely problematic due to the drying problem previously mentioned, especially if you put it on top of a moisture barrier.   If you insist on insulating the floor then buying rigid insulation is a lot more practical and a lot less labor intensive.

 

The issue of compactor vibrations affecting papercrete depend on how many inches of road base are being compacted.   For many reasons papercrete floors are not the best choice for insulation purposes.

 

Road bases are not all created equal.   One good article on using road bases for floors is the following:   

http://www.networkearth.org/naturalbuilding/floor.html

 

Neal

 

 

 

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "joeglory425" <joe_r_richardson@hotmail.com>

Hi all,

I live in Northwest Illinois. It gets cold in the winter. I thought
it would be possible to have both a highly insulated floor and
incorporate massive amounts of thermal mass by having an earthen floor
on top of insulating papercrete.

I thought I'd first excavate out the area, and apply some road base.
I'd compact this down. The purpose of this layer is to discourage any
borrowing animals that may tunnel down and wreck havoc on my moisture
barrier. The next layer would be a few inches of sand, then moisture
barrier, and then a few more inches of sand to protect the moisture
barrier. On top of this would be a layer of papercrete for
insulation. On top of the papercrete would be the earthen floor
(presumably of road base). My concern is if I use a plate compactor to
compact the road base over the papercrete, the papercrete would not be
able to withstand it. Has anyone done any experiments of running a
compactor over pape rcrete? Would the vibrations simply vibrate it to
pieces or compact it?

Joseph in Illinois

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