Hi! Where I live, I must build without any permanent foundations,
only piers on pads. All buildings must be "portable," meaning that it
would be theoretically possible for a crane to pick up the building
and put it on a truck trailer to be moved. I know, sounds stupid and
it really does make things difficult, but that is the local law for
now. I don't really ever plan on moving my buildings, they just have
to have the possibility inherently built-in. So, I thought I'd run my
plans by you all and see if anyone has any good advice for me. I'm
going to build my buildings using papercrete, one way or another.
I was thinking to make my buildings kind of like a big cargo shipping
container. I'm thinking of welding up a 13' x 43' deck using 4" or 5"
angle iron to form the perimeter box. I'm thinking of welding on to
the top of bottom leg of the angle iron box 2" x 1" I-beams side to
side every 40 inches on center and overlaying them by welding on 8" x
8" wire mesh. Finally, I'm thinking of covering the mesh with 1/2"
hardware cloth. I thought I'd treat this foundation/floor as a roof
and put down a mortar of wet mix and panels for a first layer, then
build up blocks to a total PC depth of 12" and cover that with a float
of PC mix with extra cement.
When that sets up, I'm hoping to stack PC wall blocks 12"wide x
24"long x 5.5" high to build up the walls. On top, I'm thinking of
toweling out a leveling course using wooden side slip forms. On top
of that, I'm thinking of building another deck, only this time it
would actually be a roof. I'm thinking of connecting the decks by
welding 2" angle iron on the "V" vertically to the outside side of the
perimeter angle iron.
I'm thinking of building up the roof to 18" thick. (It is hot here and
PC is cheaper than running a bigger air conditioning unit.)
I'm thinking of "drilling" bolt-cutter cut rebar through the wall
blocks as I go to hold the wall courses together. I can drill trough
the floor, hardware cloth, mesh, past the I-beam and weld the end to
the top of the bottom leg of the perimeter angle iron. I'd weld the
top to the the inner edge of the top perimeter angle iron before I put
the mesh, hardware cloth, and PC on the roof.
I thought I could use the pointed "V" edge of the vertical angle iron
to screed off my outer coat of PC wall plaster.
When I'm done, I'll have a "container" building that is 12" thick on
the four sides and the floor and 18" thick on the roof with a metal
semi-exoskeleton.
I'll build this on piers. I'll just use enough of them to keep the
floor from sagging. I'll put them along the long sides and one row
down the middle, lengthwise. I'm hoping that putting the 12" square
piers on about 6' centers will be enough and I'll only need one row in
the middle. Maybe I'll need to shorten the middle row of piers and
set an I-beam end to end, down the middle on top of the piers to
support the middle of the floor from sagging.
The mix I'm thinking of using would be 1:1:1.67, paper, sand, cement.
I'm almost done with my towmixer, I'll also write about that.
Well, thanks in advance for any ideas or comments.
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