I did the bottom of my walls with earthbags filled with pumice. The idea was to provide a capillary break between the papercrete and the ground. I'm wondering why you would want to do a rammed earth course. If you have earth for that then why not use it in the earthbags? I really enjoyed making the earthbag foundation and it came out nice. If you do rammed earth or anything that will conduct moisture you will have to put something to keep it from migrating into your papercrete.
I am not sure how adding cement to sand would work. I guess you will have to experiment with it. Keep in mind that cement is about $12 a bag now and you will need a few bags. If you have access to some nice clay soil, such as at a road cut or excavation site, you could get it for free and it would work just a well as cement. I just finished a kiva fireplace using just clay and sand and it is nice and sturdy.
I know a lot of people use rebar in papercrete. I never do. Maybe I should but what I have observed is that papercrete never really sticks to anything but itself. I deduce from that that if there were an earthquake the rebar would cut through the papercrete and not really be very effective. That is just my speculation and it may be wrong.
Regarding using different materials in your walls keep in mind that they may not bond well which means you may have cracks where the joints are. What I have done (and I'm not saying I know the best way to do things) was to make the structure as monolithic as possible. I continued the walls without any breaks right around the corners. I had a 4' opening so we could get into the building but other than that all openings will be cut out with the chain saw. So far the only place I see a little settling is at the corners of the opening. I am not concerned about that because I have an overbuilt lintel there for a 6' french door.
I would also say, don't worry about accumulating a great paper supply before you get started. If you leave it sitting around it may get a little moldy and in the windy season it's hard to keep it in one place. I have a store nearby where I get cardboard any time I need it. I try to never totally run out though. If you are using another type of paper see if you can make an arrangement to pick it up regularly.
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To: papercreters@yahoogroups.com
From: ablueprincess@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 04:56:23 +0000
Subject: [papercreters] Re: Thoughts needed
For some reason my computer wont let me see the pictures :( Tomorrow I will try it on another computer and hopefully see your set up. I've been reading up on this forum and WOW what a great forum this is with tonz of info!!! You people rock!!! Ive also found out that my sand here is round and is why my car sinks when we get a good rain. Sooo now Im thinking I should add cement to my soil in the earthbags or even do without the bags and do rammed earth. I have been chatting with someone who has plans to build a home with rammed earth and I am now considering doing the bottom of the walls with rammed earth as well as rectangular columns for strong support of the roof and the corners. I dont know that I really want to tamp earth in around verticle rebar though and there is some speculation that rebar might not be appropriate for rammedearth even in an earthquake zone like mine..... I do think the papercrete should have metal tied into it for structure and strength in the framing or even just pvc pipe filled with sand??? Also I inventoried my present stash of paper and I have about 16 cubic feet, spaceman said I needed about 3100 cubic feet of slurry so how much slurry would 16 cubic feet of paper make?
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