Dish soap can reduce the amount of water needed thus reducing the amount of residual water left after the water cement reaction. This means less trapped water when the cement cures and combined with the spaces left by the bubbles there is less problem with freeze thaw cracking from water expanding when it freezes.
From:
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 7:11 AM
To:
Subject: [papercreters] Dish soap in concrete
I was just listening to Gary Sullivan at Home, a call in radio show about home improvement. A man called in that was a concrete inspector for many years, he told about the many years he watched concrete contractors using dish soap in their mix and how well it worked. They add a teaspoon or tablespoon of dish soap (shoot…I can’t remember now, too early) for every gallon of water in the concrete when mixing. The reason for this is..the soap creates little bubbles within the concrete and the reason for this is when water comes in contact with the cured concrete without the soap it wicks into it, then it gets cold the water freezes and this creates cracks. With the soap in the mix the bubbles reduce the water wicking thus preventing the concrete to crack. Now I hope I explained this well enough! I don’t know if this applies to papercrete because of the low amount used but I thought I would put it to the list.
Ha, I can just see someone trying to use this method in a tow mixer....soap bubbles everywhere..
__._,_.___
