brewing up papercrete

a short introduction video to a revolutionary new building material that uses recycled waste paper called papercrete.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• papercrete
• recycling
• alternative
• building
• sam
• calagione

[alphautubeone]

PSP, earthships, light clay, are also really cool cheap methods.

[mattywest2000]

i like these alternatives i have worked with most of them. what i am trying to do is find some alternative that can compete with mainstream construction. many of these other alternatives are low cost but very labor intensive and leave you with a house that might be considered "strange" by american standards, people are worried they wont be keeping up with the jones' or have something they can sell in the future.

[mattywest2000]

(cont) I am trying to develop a building material that in the end looks like a normal house without the huge labor expenditure. ICF block and Rastra are alternatives i feel are breaking into the mainstream construction, papercrete can do this using waste material rather then petro chemical styrafoam like these other two. thanks for the comments

[mattywest2000]

My apologies, we were aware that our video exceded the time limit and developed a shortened version we could post if it were a matter of us being disqualified, however upon reading Sam Calagione's book it is very obvious that he is a man who takes pride in quality. We felt the slightly longer version of the film portrayed the idea better, was more entertaining and generally of a greater quality. Glad you enjoyed it!

[papercrete01]

That was a very good video. Are you now producing papercrete commercially? I'm here in northern New Mexico and have been working on my papercrete project for over a year now. I think it's a wonderful product and would love to get a production plant going here in Abiquiu. I'd like to hear what you're doing. I appreciate all the good info you've shared, statistics and such. Judith

[tooomp]

This sounds like a great new innovation in construction. Of course there are other methodologies which have similar potential. Consider cordwood homes, earthships (which consists of used tires stacked then covered with cement to create high r-values), and then there is a builder in aurora Illinois named Perry Bigelow who has created some super efficient homes using innovative construction techniques like all-weather wood footings (for better insulating factor).

[TonyKaku]

Cement production accounts for about 7% of all greenhouse gases globally. However, as the R value of papercrete is so high, the volume of cement is minimised, and the use of it in building is so simple (can be blown on), I think that used in the right way, it would be sustainable overall. I am really leaning towards papercrete-finishing a straw bale home I hope to build this year.

Thanks for the video, Matty.

PS, f*** the Jones! My house is going to be biomorphic.

[johndavidstrong1]

great video! much love, D

[alphautubeone]

sadly i think it will take quite some time before peoples minds are flexible enough to accept such unconventional technology. Or a sea level rise of 10 metres might convince a few billion within a few seconds which is also a possibillity.

[alphautubeone]

it works for building....google: papercrete and check it out....its real cool.also check out the "living in paper" website.

[alphautubeone]

rastra....thats new to me, sounds interesting...can you make it easily yourself?. anouther cool one is: ricehull sacks. Its kind of experimental and i dont know much about it yet. ive been working on a site that i hope is gunna be a real shocker to the natural building world when it comes out. i've put your email address on my launch notification database..(if you dont mind). where are you guys from?

[alphautubeone]

the only thing that resembles low labour or speed is spraying papercrete through a pump onto pre positioned steel wire. also other materials can be used this way if you have the know how to build a suitable pump that performs as required. I know the papercrete guys have already had success with this idea which is detailed in the papercrete book. The other solution to labour might be to hire a gang of illegals at 1$ an hour (twice their normal salery back home)...lol.

[alphautubeone]

anything that someone else markets is always going to be much more pricy than the standard alt methods like above. To save labour cost the only solution is to go mechanicle. I too dream of coming up with the same original solution, yet the sticking point is how does one man create walls fast?. If you come up with that answer your likely to get rich.

[alphautubeone]

I am real keen on natural building and hope to build my home soon. i have all the books on every subject...The way i look at things is like this: If i build a house thats not worth anything to anyone else who cares....i am morgage free living in a customised dream house and my kids will inherit a morgage free life too!. What do you need the house sale money for?...to save to buy a house?..Youve already got one that cost maybe a thousand bucks!.LOL.