Excellent data driven video, thank you for sharing very interesting to watch the process of your data driven selection of your building material choices
Are you weighing your foam to dial it in to about 90-100 grams per quart? I also suggest you use an air compressor that has a larger tank. This will bring more consistent bubbles with less large pockets. What foaming agent are you using? Drexel is best, 7th Generation dish soap is a second option.
Yes, we weigh the foam at the start of each batch, (our other videos show the whole process more and the different things we have tried) and he adjusts the regulator as need to make sure the pressure doesn't drift. A bigger compressor might be better, but we are off-grid and on solar, and this size works as long as he keeps an eye on it. We are using Drexel, and suspect that could be our issue, because we weren't mixing it well before each batch, and have heard that can affect the later batches.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid get the bigger compressor. If the tank has to refill with compressed air while a batch of Aircrete is being made there will always be inconsistencies. Dialing during a batch is not recommended. Compressors use energy when they fill up. Smaller compressors must fill up more often. Big compressors take longer to fill up, but do so much less often. The power consumption difference is negligible. They can be had for very little money (
Another great video presentation this week. I appreciate all your hard work, statistics and results. Have you settled on a formula that works for your exterior walls? Wishing you both another blessed week. Peace.
Thanks for watching! It's been interesting. No, we haven't settled on it yet. We plan to show the rest of the garden wall, and the concrete fiber reinforced samples soon. Wishing you a wonderful week as well! 😊
I was doing a bunch of test baches, and what I figured out was if I premixed my bubble solution, it would go flat. Needed fresh soap mix every batch. I'm about to start experiments with latex paint.
Over the past year or so I have been making quite a bit of aircrete and have never had any that dropped at all. I used the same method as "Man about Tools" Kent uses with Suave shampoo as the foaming agent. The foam mix is 6 oz of Suave to 1 gallon of water. Around 20-25 psi of air in the foam generator. I use enough foam to double the volume of slurry for each batch. This produces a very light aircrete mix since it is 50/50 foam to slurry. Your mileage may vary.
I wondered about adding some Suave shampoo to the Drexel to see if it would help. 50/50 is a pretty heavy mix for aircrete. It should be pretty strong. I noticed Man About Tools didn't seem to add very much foam. The cement slurry in our full batches comes up 5 inches or so in the barrel, then the barrel is filled to the top with 42 or so gallons of foam. Some people add 50 gallons of foam Our low foam mix has 20% less foam, which made a noticeably stronger aircrete.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Yes, a richer mix..(more cement to foam ratio) will be considerable stronger...of course..more costly too. Seeing all those bubbles popping on the surface @16:21 Makes me think too wet or hard water. Wasn't sure how precisely you're filling your barrel with foam.. Filling your cement slurry with your foam to a mark that's 30" high in a 55 gallon barrel yields the 45 gallons. If you're adding too much foam to the batch it will make the batch too wet and effect the viscosity. The batch needs to be thick enough or the bubbles float to the top and collapse. As far as foam stability, I have also heard that drexel needs to be shaken to reincorporate if it's been sitting on a store shelf for a long time. We know that foam life will vary with water hardness, humidity & temperature. Hard water ..dissolved elements like calcium and magnesium...inhibits the formation of bubbles...it will be good to see if the water softener solves the issues. Observing and comparing foam stability by placing the foam made with softened water verse the other in 5 gallon buckets and observing how long it remains stable might give an indication how it will perform in batches.
@@Lisacee7 Yes, that video clip was of one of our earlier batches, before he was adjusting the pressure regulator throughout the batch. The foam was too wet and the mix was using way more of the soap solution than it should have. He cut the barrel down, so it was one inch above 45 gallons. We are using an RV water softener, it's the black tank that the hose is connected to. The hardness level of the water on the test strips is 0. Once we got the hang of it, batches 6 through 14 turned out pretty well, but we started having some issues after that. Next we mixed 4 full batches for the garden wall, and they turned out ok, but not great. For our last set of samples with the fiber reinforcements, we used a new bottle of Drexel that we mixed very well, kept the samples in the well house where we were sure they wouldn't freeze, and tried to make sure the Drexel was closer to room temperature. We'll be showing how those turned out soon.
@@FrugalBuilding Drexel is really concentrated. It is $48 a gallon on Amazon, but a full batch only uses 4 oz. It ends up costing $1.50 for the solution to fill a 5 gallon bucket, which makes a full batch of aircrete. Cost wise it's pretty good, but I have heard many say that if it's not mixed well the earlier batches tend to turn out better than later batches. Drexel also seems to be pretty temperature sensitive, so maybe Suave does better with colder temperatures.
One other thing I noticed was in your pour... I'm wondering if you should be taking a mallet and knocking out any potential air pockets before leveling off the excess. I don't think you'll do any harm in the micro bubbles by giving the forms a few good whacks just to make sure.
Another RUclipsr (Handeeman) built a house using ICF Panels and when they poured the concrete they used concrete with a metal fiber product mixed in which the manufacturer claimed eliminated the need for rebar. I believe the company was called Helix Steel Micro Rebar. I wonder if a product like that or even fiberglass fibers would increase your Aircrete strength.
The steel fibers aren't recommended for aircrete by the manufacturer nor by others testing them as they then to sink somewhat. The basalt fiber tends to float in amongst the bubbles as it cures so does a better job.
I am talking to Aircrete Harry about a Medieval Fireplace wall that will be 12ft tall made with blocks but I am thinking of using his EPIC mix but instead of styrofoam I'm thinking of Perlite which can be shipped to you in huge 70m3 totes. That with recycled paper insulation, it should produce a very light and insulative concrete mix. I haven't tested with it yet but I think if you tried this, it would really solve all your problems. Also the dimensions for my bricks are the same as traditional medieval castle bricks (18x12") but given how light the bricks would be, you could easily build your house using traditional mortar and light weight concrete bricks rather than a single pour tall wall. It probably would take you just as much time doing traditional block laying as it would to building those forms and making sure they are braced correctly and don't leak.
There's a guy on RUclips that ads shredded stryrophone into his mix and built his hole house. Even made it a 2 story house. I just can't remember what his name is. Also try adding concrete fibers to your mix, thats where concrete gets alot of its strength.
Steven Williams has some interesting stuff going on, but It would be a huge ordeal to collect, store, and shredding the huge amount of styrofoam that would be necessary to build a house. If we can get aircrete to work, we would much rather build with it. Yes, our next set of tests are with basalt and fiberglass fibers. 🙂
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid I was just talking about doing a test to see how both would work together. The stryrophone and concrete fibers. But it sounds like you might be on to something with your idea.
Drexel is not made for cement. CMX is. If they froze the first night you would see a totally white surface. Edit: Just colder temperature will explain new collapsing. The proper set-accelerator can allow the cement to set up before the foam collapses.
We saw some white patches on the garden wall and figured it might have froze. We are learning that our low temperatures are 20° colder than in town, so that's not helping anything. These later batches were poured at about 10° cooler than the first sets of samples. Low to mid 70°s instead of 80°s like the first set. I did finally read that Drexel needs to be used and stored at room temperature, so we kept it inside for our last set of samples. Drexel seems to be what most people recommend using, we hadn't heard of CMX. When the samples fell, it happened pretty quickly.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Here type I-II cement does not appear to be available anymore, so I guess we need to get used to type V sulfate-resisting cement. If you retard the cement, it will collapse - no foaming agent will hold up forever. So doesn't it make sense to accelerate it in cold weather? Calcium nitrate (fertilizer) or aluminum sulfate or one of the shotcrete accelerators at a harmless low dose - but alkalis may kill Drexel.
I have been there, done that.... I highly recommend NOT using aircrete for your house build. I had all the same issues you are having. I could never get good consistency in batches. After my dome build, I then got large cracks in the structure.
When I asked you about it earlier, I was so sorry to hear that it cracked. 😰 The dome turned out really well, and it looked like so much work! We thought aircrete might still work okay with thicker walls, some reinforcements, and making the walls non-load bearing. We'll be revealing our final testing conclusions soon.
So obviously some factor changed between the first tests and second tests. However, I'd like to propose that although your test are interesting they have little bearing on using aircrete for NON STRUCTURAL / NON LOAD BEARING walls where there's a steel frame doing the load bearing. Your simply trying to fill the space between columns with a reasonable strong insulator. I've seen perfectly fine houses built of 2x4 walls with 1" white styrofoam and thin vinyl siding (both of which have no real structural strength) external envelope and fiberglass batts between the studs with sheetrock as an inside face. And this home is on the Texas Gulf Coast and has survived 6 hurricanes down through the years. I believe that a 6" thick aircrete wall has plenty of strength anywhere, even where you live. Especially if there was stuff wire mesh stretching between the support columns in the center of the wall. I think you should plan on fiberglass or poly mesh and plaster to coat the interior and exterior walls because that actually adds an amazing amount of ridigidity and strength.
It might work, and our first samples were awesome compared to these later ones. I am somewhat worried about it crumbling inside the walls. Our temperatures here often change 50° from morning to night. Because of that, it seems like there will be a lot of contraction and expansion, and it seems like the wire might contribute to breaking it apart rather than holding it together? Our next samples are with fiberglass and basalt fibers. We will be showing those soon. It will be interesting to see how the garden wall holds up this winter with all of the different batches and mixes it's made of. We plastered one section of the wall, and will be showing that soon too.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Although the air temperature might swing 50 degrees, I'd guess that the wall will only change 10 degrees during the day. It has a huge amount of thermal mass, an R value of ~2, and will be heated from the inside on cold nights. It'd be an interesting thing to test with a mock-up wall section and a data logging thermometer.
It's been quite the ordeal. 😅 Glad we got a garden wall out of all if these test batches. We hear the coyote packs, but this is the first time we caught a whole pack on the game camera. ❤️🏜️
Why not test it with its textile reinforcement layer when performing the beam test? I'm not sure what you expect out of aircrete by its self. I think it should be considered as and insulate layer with some compressive strength that is part of a system. To bad you don't have lots of time. I feel I will be facing the same challenge as use as I am still in the testing recipe phase and time is short. I have been working with a mix of light weight aggregates and Urethane and acrylic binders working with the cement. They have been more consistent for me then pure aircrete. Problem is the slow turn around time for curing. I have had very interesting results with elastic roofing acrylic and styrofoam aggregate. Very bendy and light weight bricks. My goal is to find common materials and affordability. I'm also still trying to find a textile fabric that is cheap and strong. "PP non woven needle punch" may be a solution. I would love to go canvas if I can source some cheap enough. I would avoid any polyester fabrics. They can rot in the alkaline cement. At least you are only using aircrete for infill so you should be able to get your walls going with much less demand on the aircrete. I always say its good for domes or infill, but not structure walls.
Our testing was to compare different recipes to each other, and to see if we could make consistent batches. We also figured we would end up with some less than ideal batches, and wanted to see how those would perform too. We have seen people on RUclips show some of their samples that turn out very crumbly and brittle. We don't want powdery aircrete inside our walls even with strong fabric and plaster on the outside. Our first successful batches were awesome compared to anything we have made recently. We would feel a lot better about pushing ahead with it if we could even come close to replicating our earlier batches. We'll show the rest of the garden wall, as well as the fiber samples and the results from those tests soon. We thought we would be able to make aircrete through the winter, but our particular area is getting well below freezing already. It is expensive, but we were planning to use the fiberglass mesh for the outside, and possibly the inside too.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Thats frustrating to have varying results but that seems all to common with aircrete. Most people just go with the lesser bricks and keep building. I"m guessing you have looked at your well water? Sulfates can be an issue as an example. Thanks for the updates!!!
glycerin ? veggie oil ? how is that going to dry ? I would think that would keep a permanent slight mud. even a low concentrations, wouldn't that just be like dry, barely hydrated playdoh
Someone recommended using it, we had some, and it was cheap. Some of our earlier batches turned out great, I don't think it hurt anything. We suspect the colder temperatures were to blame for our later issues. We didn't have a controlled environment to make aircrete, so it wasn't going to work for us.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid eventually i'm going to try aircrete. my ideas for bulking are, charcoal from carbonizing wood ; recycled plastic, glass, rocks, clay from the site, crushed bricks / cinderblock / any stone-like material. Regardless, if the money is available just make concrete walls / cinderblock is a staple. Aircrete is mostly a budget idea. it would probably go good on the outside of a structure to resist the elements. Another idea is aircrete, with epoxy coating. That'd make a more stable light/strong brick.
The channel name was a way to kick off the channel and let people know what it was about. We intended to change it, and we'll probably shorten it more later.
Hello, don't loose hope just yet! Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed lol. From what I see you have great results! What are you guys trying to achieve or test for with your beam test, how is it going to play a role in your build? Are you planning to use aircrete beams for rafters? I think you may have great results with the samples you have already made. Just need to pick the one that suits your purpose. What you may be looking for in aircrete is that it doesn't collapse while its drying and after its cured it is hard and doesn't dent easily, with such results you'll have load bearing walls. As an option you may use hog panels 'or something similar, chicken wire, etc' inside the walls as reinforcement. Here is an example of a test that shows the true potential of aircrete and its load bearing strength. channels name is Jim's cool stuff: ruclips.net/video/wDiQkayscaQ/видео.html Also maybe you've seen this channel as well is "Honey Do Carpenter'? He made a great looking shed with aircrete and his way of doing it is also a great option for strong walls. ruclips.net/video/tKVsH1dkl6M/видео.html What would you do for the finish of the walls, stucco? This guy uses a simple method for adding strength and waterproofing the walls. ruclips.net/video/XzVETOW0L-Q/видео.html Wish you all the best and success in achieving your goals of being self sustainable. God bless.
Our tests were to compare different recipes to each other, and to see if we are able to make consistent batches. These were just fairly easy and repeatable tests to give us some idea about aircrete's brittleness and strength. We also figured we would end up with some less than ideal batches, and wanted to see how those would perform too. We have seen people on RUclips end up with aircrete that is very crumbly and brittle. We don't want powdery aircrete inside our walls even with strong fabric and plaster on the outside. Our first successful batches were awesome compared to anything we have made recently. We would feel a lot better about pushing ahead with it if we could even come close to repeating our earlier batches. We'll show the rest of the garden wall, as well as the fiber reinforced samples and the results from that soon. Thanks! 😊
As a structural engineer I fail to see the point of these tests. Concrete is good in compression and not tension so a tensile fabric on the bottom side would be required to achieve any notable flexural strength. To balance cross sectional forces the denser aircrete (settled on bottom) would be on the top for better compression strength. Tensile fabric would be added on top but used on bottom of beam. If tensile fabric strengh matches or exceeds compression strength then that will optimize the flexural strength of your member. The main advantage of aircrete is its ability to fill volume with a self supporting, self insulating material, lightweight, ecofriendly, and inexpensive material.
The purpose of our testing method is explained better in this video ruclips.net/video/5HkchwhuJcA/видео.html Yes, we were definitely planning to cover the inside and outside with fiberglass mesh and plaster. Good aircrete is pretty decent, but off batches are really crumbly and brittle, and not suitable for much. We are also seeing from the garden wall that aircrete continues to shrink. The only way I would even consider using it is for bricks that are fully cured and dry, and it would definitely need fabric and plaster.
Really appreciate your science on this. This is great info that will help people to avoid poor mixes. Thank you!!
Just echoing the same, New subscriber enjoying the videos-great work!
So glad I found your page again, I very much enjoyed following your old page . I now look forward to catching up on all your excellent content
Glad you found us! Thanks! 😊🏜️
Excellent data driven video, thank you for sharing very interesting to watch the process of your data driven selection of your building material choices
Thanks! It was quite the experience, aircrete is real finicky stuff. 😄
Good testing. Interesting results. Thanks for sharing
Thanks!
Are you weighing your foam to dial it in to about 90-100 grams per quart? I also suggest you use an air compressor that has a larger tank. This will bring more consistent bubbles with less large pockets.
What foaming agent are you using? Drexel is best, 7th Generation dish soap is a second option.
Yes, we weigh the foam at the start of each batch, (our other videos show the whole process more and the different things we have tried) and he adjusts the regulator as need to make sure the pressure doesn't drift. A bigger compressor might be better, but we are off-grid and on solar, and this size works as long as he keeps an eye on it.
We are using Drexel, and suspect that could be our issue, because we weren't mixing it well before each batch, and have heard that can affect the later batches.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid get the bigger compressor. If the tank has to refill with compressed air while a batch of Aircrete is being made there will always be inconsistencies. Dialing during a batch is not recommended.
Compressors use energy when they fill up. Smaller compressors must fill up more often. Big compressors take longer to fill up, but do so much less often. The power consumption difference is negligible. They can be had for very little money (
I love seeing people making a go of it. Well done as usual
Thanks so much!
Another great video presentation this week. I appreciate all your hard work, statistics and results. Have you settled on a formula that works for your exterior walls? Wishing you both another blessed week. Peace.
Thanks for watching! It's been interesting. No, we haven't settled on it yet. We plan to show the rest of the garden wall, and the concrete fiber reinforced samples soon. Wishing you a wonderful week as well! 😊
Did you add a water filter system before your softener ?
No, we are using clean well water. What would be the purpose of filtering it?
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid it takes the bad out of the water to be softened through the softner
I was doing a bunch of test baches, and what I figured out was if I premixed my bubble solution, it would go flat. Needed fresh soap mix every batch. I'm about to start experiments with latex paint.
Best wishes! 😎
Over the past year or so I have been making quite a bit of aircrete and have never had any that dropped at all.
I used the same method as "Man about Tools" Kent uses with Suave shampoo as the foaming agent.
The foam mix is 6 oz of Suave to 1 gallon of water. Around 20-25 psi of air in the foam generator. I use enough foam to double the volume of slurry for each batch. This produces a very light aircrete mix since it is 50/50 foam to slurry. Your mileage may vary.
I wondered about adding some Suave shampoo to the Drexel to see if it would help. 50/50 is a pretty heavy mix for aircrete. It should be pretty strong. I noticed Man About Tools didn't seem to add very much foam. The cement slurry in our full batches comes up 5 inches or so in the barrel, then the barrel is filled to the top with 42 or so gallons of foam. Some people add 50 gallons of foam Our low foam mix has 20% less foam, which made a noticeably stronger aircrete.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Yes, a richer mix..(more cement to foam ratio) will be considerable stronger...of course..more costly too. Seeing all those bubbles popping on the surface @16:21 Makes me think too wet or hard water. Wasn't sure how precisely you're filling your barrel with foam.. Filling your cement slurry with your foam to a mark that's 30" high in a 55 gallon barrel yields the 45 gallons. If you're adding too much foam to the batch it will make the batch too wet and effect the viscosity. The batch needs to be thick enough or the bubbles float to the top and collapse. As far as foam stability, I have also heard that drexel needs to be shaken to reincorporate if it's been sitting on a store shelf for a long time. We know that foam life will vary with water hardness, humidity & temperature. Hard water ..dissolved elements like calcium and magnesium...inhibits the formation of bubbles...it will be good to see if the water softener solves the issues. Observing and comparing foam stability by placing the foam made with softened water verse the other in 5 gallon buckets and observing how long it remains stable might give an indication how it will perform in batches.
@@Lisacee7 Yes, that video clip was of one of our earlier batches, before he was adjusting the pressure regulator throughout the batch. The foam was too wet and the mix was using way more of the soap solution than it should have. He cut the barrel down, so it was one inch above 45 gallons. We are using an RV water softener, it's the black tank that the hose is connected to. The hardness level of the water on the test strips is 0. Once we got the hang of it, batches 6 through 14 turned out pretty well, but we started having some issues after that. Next we mixed 4 full batches for the garden wall, and they turned out ok, but not great. For our last set of samples with the fiber reinforcements, we used a new bottle of Drexel that we mixed very well, kept the samples in the well house where we were sure they wouldn't freeze, and tried to make sure the Drexel was closer to room temperature. We'll be showing how those turned out soon.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid I used only Suave shampoo as the foaming agent. No Drexel was used as it costs too much.
@@FrugalBuilding Drexel is really concentrated. It is $48 a gallon on Amazon, but a full batch only uses 4 oz. It ends up costing $1.50 for the solution to fill a 5 gallon bucket, which makes a full batch of aircrete. Cost wise it's pretty good, but I have heard many say that if it's not mixed well the earlier batches tend to turn out better than later batches. Drexel also seems to be pretty temperature sensitive, so maybe Suave does better with colder temperatures.
Thanks for sharing, Thumbs up👍
Thanks for watching! 😊
Very interesting video
Thanks! 🙂
One other thing I noticed was in your pour... I'm wondering if you should be taking a mallet and knocking out any potential air pockets before leveling off the excess. I don't think you'll do any harm in the micro bubbles by giving the forms a few good whacks just to make sure.
He tries to bump it in some with the bucket when pouring it in, but it probably wouldn't hurt to do it a little more. 🙂
Another RUclipsr (Handeeman) built a house using ICF Panels and when they poured the concrete they used concrete with a metal fiber product mixed in which the manufacturer claimed eliminated the need for rebar. I believe the company was called Helix Steel Micro Rebar. I wonder if a product like that or even fiberglass fibers would increase your Aircrete strength.
Yes, our next step here is to test batches with basalt fibers, and fiberglass fibers.
The steel fibers aren't recommended for aircrete by the manufacturer nor by others testing them as they then to sink somewhat. The basalt fiber tends to float in amongst the bubbles as it cures so does a better job.
I am talking to Aircrete Harry about a Medieval Fireplace wall that will be 12ft tall made with blocks but I am thinking of using his EPIC mix but instead of styrofoam I'm thinking of Perlite which can be shipped to you in huge 70m3 totes. That with recycled paper insulation, it should produce a very light and insulative concrete mix. I haven't tested with it yet but I think if you tried this, it would really solve all your problems.
Also the dimensions for my bricks are the same as traditional medieval castle bricks (18x12") but given how light the bricks would be, you could easily build your house using traditional mortar and light weight concrete bricks rather than a single pour tall wall. It probably would take you just as much time doing traditional block laying as it would to building those forms and making sure they are braced correctly and don't leak.
A Medieval fireplace sounds awesome! Best wishes on your project! 👍😊
I'm a bit surprised that neither of you are bald yet. Talk about the patience of Job.
Not yet anyway. It's been quite the experience for sure. 😅
Those are some disappointing results, thank you for all the testing you're doing!
Yes, we had such high hopes with each new batch. It's a challenge for sure! 🙂
There's a guy on RUclips that ads shredded stryrophone into his mix and built his hole house. Even made it a 2 story house. I just can't remember what his name is. Also try adding concrete fibers to your mix, thats where concrete gets alot of its strength.
Steven Williams has some interesting stuff going on, but It would be a huge ordeal to collect, store, and shredding the huge amount of styrofoam that would be necessary to build a house. If we can get aircrete to work, we would much rather build with it. Yes, our next set of tests are with basalt and fiberglass fibers. 🙂
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid I was just talking about doing a test to see how both would work together. The stryrophone and concrete fibers. But it sounds like you might be on to something with your idea.
Drexel is not made for cement. CMX is. If they froze the first night you would see a totally white surface. Edit: Just colder temperature will explain new collapsing. The proper set-accelerator can allow the cement to set up before the foam collapses.
We saw some white patches on the garden wall and figured it might have froze. We are learning that our low temperatures are 20° colder than in town, so that's not helping anything. These later batches were poured at about 10° cooler than the first sets of samples. Low to mid 70°s instead of 80°s like the first set. I did finally read that Drexel needs to be used and stored at room temperature, so we kept it inside for our last set of samples.
Drexel seems to be what most people recommend using, we hadn't heard of CMX. When the samples fell, it happened pretty quickly.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Here type I-II cement does not appear to be available anymore, so I guess we need to get used to type V sulfate-resisting cement. If you retard the cement, it will collapse - no foaming agent will hold up forever. So doesn't it make sense to accelerate it in cold weather? Calcium nitrate (fertilizer) or aluminum sulfate or one of the shotcrete accelerators at a harmless low dose - but alkalis may kill Drexel.
I have been there, done that.... I highly recommend NOT using aircrete for your house build. I had all the same issues you are having. I could never get good consistency in batches. After my dome build, I then got large cracks in the structure.
When I asked you about it earlier, I was so sorry to hear that it cracked. 😰 The dome turned out really well, and it looked like so much work! We thought aircrete might still work okay with thicker walls, some reinforcements, and making the walls non-load bearing. We'll be revealing our final testing conclusions soon.
So obviously some factor changed between the first tests and second tests.
However, I'd like to propose that although your test are interesting they have little bearing on using aircrete for NON STRUCTURAL / NON LOAD BEARING walls where there's a steel frame doing the load bearing. Your simply trying to fill the space between columns with a reasonable strong insulator.
I've seen perfectly fine houses built of 2x4 walls with 1" white styrofoam and thin vinyl siding (both of which have no real structural strength) external envelope and fiberglass batts between the studs with sheetrock as an inside face. And this home is on the Texas Gulf Coast and has survived 6 hurricanes down through the years.
I believe that a 6" thick aircrete wall has plenty of strength anywhere, even where you live. Especially if there was stuff wire mesh stretching between the support columns in the center of the wall.
I think you should plan on fiberglass or poly mesh and plaster to coat the interior and exterior walls because that actually adds an amazing amount of ridigidity and strength.
It might work, and our first samples were awesome compared to these later ones. I am somewhat worried about it crumbling inside the walls. Our temperatures here often change 50° from morning to night. Because of that, it seems like there will be a lot of contraction and expansion, and it seems like the wire might contribute to breaking it apart rather than holding it together? Our next samples are with fiberglass and basalt fibers. We will be showing those soon.
It will be interesting to see how the garden wall holds up this winter with all of the different batches and mixes it's made of. We plastered one section of the wall, and will be showing that soon too.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Although the air temperature might swing 50 degrees, I'd guess that the wall will only change 10 degrees during the day. It has a huge amount of thermal mass, an R value of ~2, and will be heated from the inside on cold nights. It'd be an interesting thing to test with a mock-up wall section and a data logging thermometer.
There’s a lot of testing involved with air Crete. It should be really strong! Coyotes are cool!
It's been quite the ordeal. 😅 Glad we got a garden wall out of all if these test batches. We hear the coyote packs, but this is the first time we caught a whole pack on the game camera. ❤️🏜️
To tell you the truth, I found more slump after scrapping the surface. Found it worked better little less viscous.
Why not test it with its textile reinforcement layer when performing the beam test? I'm not sure what you expect out of aircrete by its self. I think it should be considered as and insulate layer with some compressive strength that is part of a system.
To bad you don't have lots of time. I feel I will be facing the same challenge as use as I am still in the testing recipe phase and time is short. I have been working with a mix of light weight aggregates and Urethane and acrylic binders working with the cement. They have been more consistent for me then pure aircrete. Problem is the slow turn around time for curing. I have had very interesting results with elastic roofing acrylic and styrofoam aggregate. Very bendy and light weight bricks. My goal is to find common materials and affordability.
I'm also still trying to find a textile fabric that is cheap and strong. "PP non woven needle punch" may be a solution. I would love to go canvas if I can source some cheap enough. I would avoid any polyester fabrics. They can rot in the alkaline cement. At least you are only using aircrete for infill so you should be able to get your walls going with much less demand on the aircrete. I always say its good for domes or infill, but not structure walls.
Our testing was to compare different recipes to each other, and to see if we could make consistent batches. We also figured we would end up with some less than ideal batches, and wanted to see how those would perform too. We have seen people on RUclips show some of their samples that turn out very crumbly and brittle. We don't want powdery aircrete inside our walls even with strong fabric and plaster on the outside. Our first successful batches were awesome compared to anything we have made recently. We would feel a lot better about pushing ahead with it if we could even come close to replicating our earlier batches. We'll show the rest of the garden wall, as well as the fiber samples and the results from those tests soon. We thought we would be able to make aircrete through the winter, but our particular area is getting well below freezing already.
It is expensive, but we were planning to use the fiberglass mesh for the outside, and possibly the inside too.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid Thats frustrating to have varying results but that seems all to common with aircrete. Most people just go with the lesser bricks and keep building. I"m guessing you have looked at your well water? Sulfates can be an issue as an example.
Thanks for the updates!!!
glycerin ? veggie oil ? how is that going to dry ? I would think that would keep a permanent slight mud. even a low concentrations, wouldn't that just be like dry, barely hydrated playdoh
Someone recommended using it, we had some, and it was cheap. Some of our earlier batches turned out great, I don't think it hurt anything. We suspect the colder temperatures were to blame for our later issues. We didn't have a controlled environment to make aircrete, so it wasn't going to work for us.
@@RedandAprilOff-Grid eventually i'm going to try aircrete. my ideas for bulking are, charcoal from carbonizing wood ; recycled plastic, glass, rocks, clay from the site, crushed bricks / cinderblock / any stone-like material.
Regardless, if the money is available just make concrete walls / cinderblock is a staple. Aircrete is mostly a budget idea. it would probably go good on the outside of a structure to resist the elements.
Another idea is aircrete, with epoxy coating. That'd make a more stable light/strong brick.
you changed you channel name again?
The channel name was a way to kick off the channel and let people know what it was about. We intended to change it, and we'll probably shorten it more later.
Hello, don't loose hope just yet! Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed lol. From what I see you have great results!
What are you guys trying to achieve or test for with your beam test, how is it going to play a role in your build? Are you planning to use aircrete beams for rafters?
I think you may have great results with the samples you have already made. Just need to pick the one that suits your purpose.
What you may be looking for in aircrete is that it doesn't collapse while its drying and after its cured it is hard and doesn't dent easily, with such results you'll have load bearing walls. As an option you may use hog panels 'or something similar, chicken wire, etc' inside the walls as reinforcement.
Here is an example of a test that shows the true potential of aircrete and its load bearing strength.
channels name is Jim's cool stuff:
ruclips.net/video/wDiQkayscaQ/видео.html
Also maybe you've seen this channel as well is "Honey Do Carpenter'?
He made a great looking shed with aircrete and his way of doing it is also a great option for strong walls.
ruclips.net/video/tKVsH1dkl6M/видео.html
What would you do for the finish of the walls, stucco?
This guy uses a simple method for adding strength and waterproofing the walls.
ruclips.net/video/XzVETOW0L-Q/видео.html
Wish you all the best and success in achieving your goals of being self sustainable. God bless.
Our tests were to compare different recipes to each other, and to see if we are able to make consistent batches. These were just fairly easy and repeatable tests to give us some idea about aircrete's brittleness and strength. We also figured we would end up with some less than ideal batches, and wanted to see how those would perform too. We have seen people on RUclips end up with aircrete that is very crumbly and brittle. We don't want powdery aircrete inside our walls even with strong fabric and plaster on the outside. Our first successful batches were awesome compared to anything we have made recently. We would feel a lot better about pushing ahead with it if we could even come close to repeating our earlier batches. We'll show the rest of the garden wall, as well as the fiber reinforced samples and the results from that soon. Thanks! 😊
As a structural engineer I fail to see the point of these tests. Concrete is good in compression and not tension so a tensile fabric on the bottom side would be required to achieve any notable flexural strength. To balance cross sectional forces the denser aircrete (settled on bottom) would be on the top for better compression strength. Tensile fabric would be added on top but used on bottom of beam. If tensile fabric strengh matches or exceeds compression strength then that will optimize the flexural strength of your member. The main advantage of aircrete is its ability to fill volume with a self supporting, self insulating material, lightweight, ecofriendly, and inexpensive material.
The purpose of our testing method is explained better in this video ruclips.net/video/5HkchwhuJcA/видео.html
Yes, we were definitely planning to cover the inside and outside with fiberglass mesh and plaster. Good aircrete is pretty decent, but off batches are really crumbly and brittle, and not suitable for much. We are also seeing from the garden wall that aircrete continues to shrink. The only way I would even consider using it is for bricks that are fully cured and dry, and it would definitely need fabric and plaster.