It's always nice to see people recognizing the benefits of working with papercrete. My first reaction to your email is that your building is very large and papercrete is a labor intensive material. I speak from experience having started a 900 sf building and realizing I couldn't finish it. (Well maybe I could have if the inspector hadn't shut me down but that's a whole n'other story. My point is that when I got into it I realized it was out of control).
I'm also wondering what makes you want to build it from papercrete. It may be because you already have a lot of what you would need, therefore keeping the cost down. But the amount of sweat equity would be great for a building that would not have that much monetary value.
One of the great benefits of papercrete is its insulative value. But would you need that for a garage in S CA?
So, the last thing I want to do is discourage you. I am a papercrete fanatic, but I think you should design and build a small structure first then decide if you want to put that much work into your garage.
The Making of Papercrete DVD now available on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Papercrete-Judith-Williams/dp/B0040ZNE9A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1283998627&sr=8-1
Follow progress on the new project at http://www.papercretebyjudith.com/blog
More papercrete info at http://squidoo.com/papercretebyjudith
To: papercreters@yahoogroups.com
From: ablueprincess@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 16:34:59 +0000
Subject: [papercreters] Thoughts needed
I want to build a large garage with a carport. The garage and carport will take up a rectangle space of about 48x50 feet and be about 16 feet tall. There are building codes where I live but they are not enforced and Im not concerned about them cuz I live in the middle of nowhere and no one cares. There are winds here regularly reaching 100mph and earthquakes (Southern California area) The frost line is not very deep (about 1 foot) and when we do get frost it is just a few hours a few times a year. We get very little rain out here as it is all desert.
I have recently been laying a sprinkler system which has also netted me a bunch of my natural dirt which is mostly compacted HARD sand with silt but little to no clay. I also have a very small supply of 1" lava rock. Gravel or 3/4" rock and firewood is pretty cheap out here. For some reason the concrete dealers out here do not use our natural sand for cement and want to sell me sand....... other then $$$ for the dealers I cannot figure out why.
I was thinking about possibly making earthbags with my natural dirt and laying a course about 3 bags high and then making papercrete blocks to build walls with. Im not sure of the mix portions I should use or how much reinforcing should be done. For the roof I am still undecided as well and am thinking about layers of mesh wire with pc covered with something that would be cheap and suitable for rain catching. I also like the idea of building the pc mixer with a water catch.
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