What Is Papercrete?
It’s simply shredded newspaper, Portland cement and sand in somewhat variable proportions of 60/20/20. This is potentially an ideal building material because it is cheap, utilizing unwanted newspapers, magazines, cardboard and junk mail plus local sand and dirt. Papercrete can be produced onsite, using few tools, and is easily handled by women, older folks, non-professional builders and anyone who wants to experiment freely. A stock watering tank has been converted to a mixing tank Papercrete is really an industrial form of paper mache. In this photo inventor Mike McCain dumps a batch of papercrete into a drying form. In construction use papercrete performs like adobe because it can be made into large or small bricks. It can also be poured like cement, made into a monolithic wall, infilled between poles or studs like light-straw clay, shaped into large, reinforced panels; mortared, drilled, hammered, nailed, used as plaster, and more. Mile McCain’s “Jumbo Blocks.” Recently, cement has
Papercrete is made from recycled paper with a small amount of cement and sand added. The ratio is 60/20/20. The paper/concrete/sand mixture is stirred in a large barrel, much like a blender, until all paper is shredded and evenly mixed with the concrete and sand. Papercrete can be mortared, drilled, hammered, nailed, used as plaster and as an infill between poles or studs. Recently, some people made the mixture without cement, and created Fidobe or Paper Adobe. These products are dense building logs used in construction. While researching, I found a gentleman that had made a mixer out of an old 55 gallon drum, which was mounted on an old car axle. A unique gearing system attached to an old lawn mower blade did the mixing. He would hook this contraption behind his car, take a slow drive around the block, and have perfect papercrete. How Is It Applied? Papercrete is handled much like adobe. It can be made in smaller bricks or can be used much as cement is, and poured into a monolithic wa
There are a number of ways to make construction material from paper. The generic term for the method described here is “papercrete”. There are a number of variations of papercrete, such as fibrous concrete or fibercrete, fibrous cement, padobe and fidobe. See more about these variations under Mixes.
In an ongoing quest for natural or sustainable construction materials, a formerly fringe building material called papercrete has become more popular in recent years. Also called fibrous cement or padobe, papercrete is a mixture of Portland cement, minerals, clay, water and a generous supply of waste paper products such as cardboard and junk mail. A large blender combines all of these ingredients into a thick slurry, or essentially an industrial grade paper mache. The addition of a small amount of Portland cement, which acts primarily as a binder, does negate some of the environmental “greenness” of papercrete, but the paper fibers themselves would not provide much stability or strength as a building material. The papercrete slurry can be poured over forms or casts in the same manner as standard concrete, or it can be formed into large bricks like adobe or concrete. Papercrete is not an ideal building material, but it can be created very inexpensively from readily available materials an
Papercrete is an alternative building material that significantly reduces the cost of home construction while offering many of the most important qualities of traditional concrete. Some have been able to reduce their building costs to about a tenth of what others have spent for essentially the same house. That’s right, instead of spending a hundred thousand dollars to build your own home, you may be able to bring the cost down to ten or twenty thousand or even less, depending on other options. And you won’t have to sacrifice quality. Papercrete has received a lot of good press in recent years because it’s a proven way to build inexpensive walls and houses. Papercrete is a custom blend of recycled paper, dirt or sand, Portland cement.
