So, the other day I took a red pill on housing, freebeard told me about Aircrete, and I took a bigger red pill.
What is Aircrete?
Cement and soap foam, together at last.
Quote:
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AirCrete is a lightweight non-toxic masonry material that is easy and inexpensive to make yourself with Little Dragon. It is waterproof, fireproof, and insect proof. It offers good thermal and acoustic insulation. It will not rot, warp, or corrode. Unlike concrete which is hard, heavy, cold and difficult to work with, AirCrete is easy to work with. It dries overnight and can be cut, carved, drilled and shaped with wood-working tools. It accepts nails and screws and is easily repaired. It had good compressive strength to make excellent foundations, subfloors, building blocks, poured walls, domes or whatever. It can be molded or formed into practically any shape. AirCrete can cut cost of conventional methods of construction by a factor of 10 for several reasons.
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What is AirCrete?
I have had all kinds of questions and it seems like nobody has answers for many of them, or one answer leads to more questions.
First of all, why is it Aircrete if it is cement and foam? Don't they know the difference between cement and concrete? Can I build a house out of it? Can I build a snowman? That same pages says "Just one liter of dish detergent with 10 gals of water make enough foam to produce about 2 cubic meters or 70 cubic feet of AC. The foam expands the volume of cement by a factor of 5 - 7. It eliminates the need for aggregates, gravel, sand, or rock."
A ratio of 1 liter of dish soap to 10 gallons of water.
Who mixes units? How does soap foam replace gravel, etc.?
So, a ratio of 1.05669 : 40. Cool.
Dome Gaia sells a foam machine for the bargain-basement price of $500, although they will ship you the kit for $360, and plans for $39, but they say it will probably cost you more to source the parts yourself.
Little Dragon - 115 volt This guy sells plans for $8 and says the parts will cost $30, but apparently people complain it cost them over a hundred. They will send you the parts for $80, or the complete unit for $125
https://www.etsy.com/listing/5523975..._home_active_2
https://www.etsy.com/listing/5709663..._home_active_4
https://www.etsy.com/listing/5710398..._home_active_3
I am not sure about the Little Dragon, but the Etsy one requires an air compressor, which is fine if you have one.
I firmly believe in using the proper tools, but I am not spending hundreds of dollars out of curiosity.
What about...
at least for proof of concept?
It says to take a 55-gallon drum, add a crazy-heavy bag of cement (94 pounds. Weird number!), seven gallons of water, and enough foam to make 45 gallons.
So... how much foam?
Ninety-four pounds of cement is one cubic foot, which is 7.48 gallons, so a ratio of 1.06864564: 1 of cement to concrete.
Right, so what is the total volume?
How much shaving cream is in a can? Nobody knows.
I bought a 12-ounce can from the dollar store and got just over a gallon from it. I mixed 28 ounces of cement and 30 ounces of water, which yielded about 48 ounces of concrete.
7:48: 45 is about 1: 6, which would have required 288 ounces of foam, 2.25 gallons--two cans would not have been enough!
I bought some plastic toolboxes from the dollar store, 4.5 x 11 x 3 inches. Each can made about 1.25 shavingcrete bricks, although with 2.25 cans of shaving cream it would have been 2.8 bricks.
The toolbox has been in the bathroom with the heater on for hours. I do not have any idea how long it will take to harden. It is taking forever!