If one wanted to build a load bearing wall one way that would work very well is to build a modified slip-form. To do this you have to have a proper concrete foundation which need not be a slab although there is an advantage in the slab as it could be topped with papercrete or a clay sand mixture ,paper adobe etc, As long as the concrete slab is properly reinforced, mixed and cured no reinforcing is needed in the topping layer of paper-adobe or whatever insulating soil or paper-soil layer you choose.
As far as doing this cheaply it is hard to beat using papercrete blocks and build the frame with small quartered trees for corner post and rough cut posts or poles for uprights with 2 flat sides and sawmill planks with small spaces between them to tie the papercrete blocks on the inside to those on the outside or you use bigger blocks outside and plaster inside , The tree and sawmill plank frame is structural and the papercrete blocks insulation. Interior walls can be done with small trees flattened on 2 sides and 3 at door and window openings. All of these cuts can be made with chainsaw jig you can build yourself if you have the skills and access to the tools You still need a strong perimeter beam to hold the weight. If the soil is relatively stable as far as moisture content money can be saved by building a trench wide enough to accommodate large bags filled with stabilized soils and or gravel , crushed concrete, river rock etc, at a right angle to the perimeter beam below the frost line. To make the foundation incredibly strong for not too much more you can pour a 4 inch slab over the bags {on a level sand layer of course} and then backfill over it. The excess soil can be used elsewhere perhaps as an insulating paper-adobe layer for the floor. Then set your forms and pour the concrete perimeter beam on top of the bags,
You do the same for the interior walls but no where near as big and you can use smaller bags.
The interior wall beams form a grid that stiffens the perimeter beam immensely.
To make the slip form wall load bearing the same method is used for the foundation unless of course you want to build a slab . In case you don't know what a slip-form is it is a method of wall building using concrete forms to build poured concrete walls in increments. The forms are placed on the perimeter beam and the reinforcing material {usually re-bar} set in place and the concrete poured to the top and troweled and vibrated in and left with a rough finish with the re-bar sticking out . After the first course is cured sufficiently the forms are "slipped" off and sat on top of the first course and the process is repeated to the desired height. They are custom made on site usually and require only basic carpentry skills and tools to produce . They are wide enough to accommodate the desired wall thickness and from 2.5 to 3.5 feet high in most cases, The advantage of this method is it allows one to pour an immensly heavy wall with all the wonderful thermal sink qualities with a set of forms that is far cheaper and , much easier and much safer to use than attempting to build a high and heavy wall all at once.
Another advantage is that you can lay stones, coke bottles sealed together to allow light in , cord wood or just about anything else you can imagine right inside the form and temporarily attached to the outside of the form before pouring the walls. Some of the most strikingly beautiful homes I have ever seen {to me anyway} were built this way. They were also immensely strong .
To make a papercrete wall structural you need to get an engineer or architect to to check the plans or draw them in the first place. Basically there are 2 methods I can see to accomplish this. The easiest way would be to use steel beams or posts for the uprights and steel or wood or even a concrete beam for the top plate . The least expensive way would be to use paper forms similar to those used to build the giant pillars that support bridges and highway overpasses but of course much smaller. The re-bar is left protruding from the foundation beams . Re-bar is then inserted into the the paper forms which is then tied to the protruding re-bar sat on top of the beams
The rest is fairly obvious but you really need to pour the concrete supports all at once and let them cure a few days before continuing, This method would be a lot of work in one regard but on the other it offsets the tedious work of making and laying the blocks . It would be an extremely well insulated house with great thermal sink qualities as well due to the mass.
The first layer would be conducive to using a mixer and then pouring directly in to the form and if you had access to a fairly heavy pickup or a bobtail and a way to lift the mixer on to a wooden platform in the bed you could get the second but after that you really need a pumper. Perhaps the local concrete could mix and deliver it to the site ? If that is not feasibly you could rig up a simple pole on a tripod and use it to lift buckets of mix into the form or just stand in the pickup bed and use a bucket. There are small concrete pumpers that can be towed with a pickup . I used one a long time ago to "snow top" roofs" . It would work perfectly for papercrete but maybe not for the concrete support posts with the aggregate I just don't know. Snow Top was a mixture of Portland, sand , and latex paint {white obviously} that was pumped up on top of hot tar roofs. It was real popular in Houston Texas 30 years ago because it made ugly roofs beautiful and reduced the temperature of the roofs from third degree burns and poor little dead sparrows to cool enough to walk barefoot on the hottest day in August and in Houston that is hot! That is how I sold them . Every time I did one I invited the neighbors who had built up roofs to come look at their neighbors beautiful new roof and I would walk barefoot on it. The demonstration was convincing. Sadly other contractors misrepresented it and told people it sealed the roof . worked on shingle roofs and that it was permanent. The fellow I worked for told them the truth that you had to seal the roof first and re-coat it in 3 to 5 years. Sadly he decided to sell the machine without telling me for 1000.00. That would be 2000-2500.00 today but it was a bargain.
Anyway if you could find one of those it would not only pump the papercrete it would mix it as well . It came with a giant paddle mixer like the ones at a commercial bakery for giants.
Sorry for the long post . One more detail: dried bamboo poles would make excellent reinforcing for the papercrete . Ben Franklin used it to build his swimming pool.
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Forrest Charnock
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