RURAL RANTS: Rural Experimentation WIth Alternative Building Materials

By Mike Donahue

Logandale’s Larry Barnum is experimenting with a new and inexpensive method of construction; and it’s a humdinger.

Using the ingenuity for which he’s well known throughout Moapa Valley, Larry takes old newspapers, a scoop or two of Portland cement and common tap water, and turns them into a substance called “papercrete.”

He’s just recently finished a small storage shed that has to be seen to be believed. No one would ever guess it’s made of paper!

Larry was born in Overton 71 years ago. He’s worked with his hands for nearly all of those years throughout the West as a farmer, trucker, welder and mechanic.

Asked why in the world he’d want to try some new type of construction method, he bluntly replies, “I like to experiment.” Although papercrete was patented in 1928 it quickly fell out of favor with the building community. Probably, Larry says, because the process of making and applying the stuff is so labor intensive, but we’ll get into that later.

Anyhow, interest in papercrete resurged in the 1980s because it is so environmentally friendly despite the use of cement in its recipe. A lot of builders offset that drawback by using clay and/or other soil in place of cement.

Unfortunately, there’s really no standard for creating and using papercete, which makes it verboten in construction projects that require approval from bureaucrats such as Clark County building inspectors. Nevertheless, research tests on a couple of different papercrete formulas have shown that the stuff has a pretty good compression and shear strength.

Larry says as far as he knows, there is only one place in the U.S., Marathon, TX, where papercrete is in regular use and that’s because there are no building codes.

According to Wikipedia, Clyde T. Curry in Marathon used papercrete to build several rooms at his bed and breakfast has revealed plans to add a library and reception out of the same stuff. Papercrete’s is easy to mold which makes constructing different building designs such as domed ceilings and other fanciful shapes extremely easy

Larry got interested in papercrete a couple of years ago and after extensive online research decided to give it a try.

There is no ready-made equipment sold anywhere to produce the product, so experimenters like Larry have to make their own.

One website described a mixer using a car differential. The differential input points up and a lawn mower blade is attached which turns inside a stock watering tank sitting on top. When the wheels turn on the differential, the gears spin and power the blade inside the tank.

Users just load the water tank with all the necessary materials and then tow it behind a vehicle. In about 20 minutes the mixer whips up three or four wheelbarrows full of thick papercrete.

Larry, however, had his own idea. He upended the deck off a riding lawn mower and attached a 50 gallon drum. The lawnmower’s blade is inside the drum and when he cranks it up it turns the whole thing into a massive chopper mixer. He drops in about five pounds of old newspapers, three pounds of cement he’s picked up for a song and 10 gallons of water and in no time, voila, papercrete.

The slurry Larry produces can be used in any number of ways including pouring it into molds that when dry can be used like any construction block, it can be sprayed on like stucco and it can be packed wet into a frame.

“It’s an inexpensive way to be build, but it’s very labor intensive,” says Larry. “Papercrete doesn’t pass code so you can’t use it in places, applications or buildings where you need a building permit, but otherwise it’s great stuff.”

Larry built a foundation and stick frame for his small storage shed, wrapped the inside and outside in chicken wire and then packed the whole thing with papercrete. It was a mountain of work but the results are amazing.

The shed’s walls are about 6 papercrete inches thick. Each inch is just under 3R insulation value which should protect its contents against heat and cold.

Despite being paper, the walls don’t burn but too much water, rain, could wreck havoc. Larry plans to stucco and paint the walls to protect the papercrete and effectively seal up the entire thing.

“Most people wouldn’t try anything like this just for a storage shed,” Larry says, “but weird people like me, well, we like to experiment.”