Papercreters: Re: [papercreters] Re: Structural Insulated Panels

Friday, February 27, 2009

Re: [papercreters] Re: Structural Insulated Panels

Hi Bob:

I am no expert on this subject but I am on the subject of
sales and the 2 greatest lies in marketing are "it sells itself" and "
build a better mousetrap and the world will be a path to your door" .

If you read the article I sent you the link to rice hulls already have been
laboratory tested and is class a fire rated as is. There are several homes
in Louisiana that where built this way and have been there close to a
decade, some in California far longer. These are mainstream houses in
cities, not in unregulated rural areas. Again I am not an expert on the
subject but before we got sideways on some other issues I corresponded with
this fellow
Paul Oliver about this and his idea for using Chinese Tallows for fuel and
he swears he has had no code problems at all.

http://www.esrla.com/shotgun/frame.htm

Surface Burning Characteristics
The ASTM E84 Standard Test for Surface
Burning Characteristics of Building Materials
ANSI 2.5, NFPA 255, UBC 8-1, UL 723)
was conducted by Omega Point Laboratories of
Elmendorf, Texas. The results here were
amazing. US building codes require a Fire
Spread Index of 25 or less. The FSI for rice hulls
was 10. US building codes require a Smoke
Development Index of 450 or less. The SDI for
rice hulls was 50. Rice hulls, therefore, are
a Class A or Class I insulation material. The
United States produces over 1.2 M metric tons
of rice hulls annually, and often times, they
are available free-of-charge.

The farthest you would possible have to go is to Eastern Arkansas and it
is max 225 miles from the mills there to Texarkana and Oklahoma is not that
big. 600 miles tops from mill to you? I won't question your knowledge of
codes but I do know that all the cellulose insulation in the store has
borax or some other fire retardant added and they do that because they have
to, it costs at least as much as the paper.
When I first read about PC I was real excited about it and I still am. If I
was going to build a dome I would definitely consider it and I can think of
some other uses but besides personal projects my real interest in all of
this is to make money, that is a sin to most environmentalist but I have
salvaged hundreds of thousands of tons of material in my life and the EPA
flew even me up to Hartford to make a speech for them and I can
unequivocally state that the real environmentalists, the ones that actually
make a difference, are trying to make money. Most of the people there were
horrified when they found I was not a worshipper of Mother Earth and
thought the best way to clean up God's earth was the way we messed it up,
for a profit.

The press that living in paper http://www.livinginpaper.com/ ] has for 25k
is the first glimpse I have had of a glimmer of hope for making PC a viable
economic project. From looking at it I believe it is about 3 or 4 times
overpriced. If it does what they say it does it might pay but if I can get
it done before he passes this life I have friend who can design one to do
the same thing and for a lot less money. Personally I believe the key to
making PC viable is a press for the mixture itself to bring the mixture
down close to 10% to 15% moisture and then pressing the bricks. Until the
material looks good people will not buy it. I hate to apply for a grant
because I hate the government and would prefer to find private investors to
fund the project but I would like to perfect a system that would produce
high quality blocks very rapidly and a small hydraulic press for homeowners
and tinkerers.
My experiments with rammed earth blocks with paper or rice hulls work fine
but papercrete is a better emotional trigger and we all are motivated by
emotion and then use logic to justify our decisions.