William Bronson

My experience as someone who is neural atypical with a late in life diagnosis is mixed.
It helps my morale to know that my struggle to do normal things isn't just a character flaw.
On the other hand I have witnessed a diagnosis being used as another reason to not do things at all.

Kevin Feinstein II wrote:How did people deal with this 200 years ago, or even more recently?  No plastic tarps, no cardboard.

Manual cultivation.
It tends to be a lot of work, but people did not have as many choices about how to make a living as they do now.
There were also animal helpers like the cotton patch goose:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Patch_goose

Is the fiberglass you references supplanting mixed in for crack resistance or separate as a layer for of insulation?

I wonder if guar gum, psyllium husk, or ground flax/chia seeds could substitute for  xanthan.

Sounds like the difference is how much air there is in the mix.
He does say the drill mixed recipe did not totally fill the form, but suggested adding more air.

The block that came from the concrete mixer weighed  22 lbs.
Working from that, and 20 dollars a bag, I get almost the same cost for cement that you did.
Like any kind of concrete, the ratio of aggregate to cement is key to the cost of a building unit.

I would like to know how long the soap and xanthan mixture remains stable.

You make great point about filling the blocks not helping insulation values because or thermal bridging.
If anything ,aircrete bricks filled with concrete makes more sense.
Using aircrete as an infill for stud or post and beam structures makes sense to me.
Using it as an insulating parge might work, but I'm not sure how it would affect where condensation might form.

Going from his recipe of 4 liters of dry Portland powder per block, I get 7 per 94 lb bag.
The bags are 17 dollars where I live, but going with $20 per bag that's a base cost of $2.86.
If you used an entire bottle of dishwashing liquid and an entire bag of of xanth gum for each block, you would still only spend an additional $4.76

Im just gonna round up to $4 per block.
That's way more than I pay for conventional block, but conventional block has no insulation value to speak of.
It still makes little sense to use this material to build a block wall.
Where are you going to need a structural element that isn't lab tested?
Even if you are building without permits,  $4 dollars per block plus the labor involved is a lot.
Better to use it as a pest proof pour in insulation in an already self supporting structure.
It would add lots of strength, but you wouldn't be relying on it for that.

If I were making custom blocks anyway, then I would find it worthwhile.
A trapezoidal dome built of custom aircrete blocks, that  makes sense to me.

One bag of cement, one bottle of detergent and the bag of xanth gum makes a lot more than one block.
The other blocks you mention are not available locally for me.

I don't think I would use it as mortar, but using it as filler in a conventional block or even a stud wall is very appealing.
Using it as  insulation behind  a hard firebrick  hot face also seems promising.

I fear even the closed cell version would soak up too much water to be a good outdoor wall cladding, but it were sealed, maybe it would work.

This year I tasted maypop fruit for the first time.
I found it quite  refreshing.
I took some cuttings and they seemed happy last I checked.
I am in zone 5B.
Everyone warns me they are very vigorous.

I've never built a keyhole garden persat, but isn't the composting part just a large version of in garden composting?
I think you could use almost any material for the "basket" and it would still work.
A ring of wire fencing would last indefinitely .
An enclosure made of concrete block would last "forever"

I build beds from pallets, 2 feet tall is the norm.
They are not expected to last forever and yet, they do last a long long time.
I end up harvesting them for soil to start new beds long before they fall apart.
Even when I remove the pallets, the contents retain the form because it's filled with roots and mycelium.
I think you can expect the same from any raised bed that has living soil.

If I were to build a keyhole garden, I would use living elderberry stakes woven together with dead grapevines, fill it with autumn leaves and animal poop, and top it with finished compost.

Living elderberry is fairly strong, dead branches are pretty weak.
Dead grape vines take forever to break down.
The elderberry would be there for dappled shade, but also green manure.
Elderberry leaves strip off their branches pretty easily, making the ideal for green manure
They will have to be aggressively pruned, but they will last indefinitely.
Prunings, can be used as stakes  to support annuals for a year, then if they grow roots, transplanted out.
Everything I've learned so far indicates elderberries are shallow rooted, but great at holding soil.
Worst case scenario, you create a elderberry thicket, but they do seem easy to manage.



The central compost receptacle would have a  half barrel reservoir at the bottom, filled in with  sawdust,with rope wicks dangling into the surrounding growing medium.
I would spike that central area with worms and finished compost.
Alternatively, use a full barrel, grow azolla or duck weed, and use them as green manure.
The center pathway and the perimeter can be planted with comfrey for more green manure.

Living where I do, I immediately thought of ratchet straps for the banding.
Your ropes seem more appropriate.
A bamboo or cane enclosure daubed in cob seems like it could be cheaper than cob on chicken wire, plus the canes themself would offer some protection.

I'm very surprised the ferrocement is delaminating.
I would expect it to be quite durable in any place without freeze thaw cycles.
My first inclination would be to fix those tanks, patching them with cob, and lining them with sheets of plastic.

As for the in ground option, a submersible hollow frame can keep a flexible liner in place when the water gets low.
Think of a pallet sized cube of milk crates , wrapped in plastic and buried to the top edge.
The water could come or go, but the crates will hold the liner against the surrounding soil.
With the right materials, this could be duplicated with basketry/wattle in the place of milk crates.
A  ferrocement inner coating would work the same way, but we have seen there are issues with using ferrocement in your context.


I think there is an underlying issue at hand.
Whatever is built will need maintenance.
Ongoing maintenance of our own homes and infrastructure is seen as an anomaly, but it is closer to the historic normal.
Expecting anything to last and retain function without ongoing care is unreasonable.
Nothing lasts forever, and I know when I do things on the cheap, I pay with extra ongoing labor, but again everything will eventually need maintenance, even when it is made of the most expensive materials.


Is there a local entity that can organize the ongoing labor that keeping the water tanks in good repair will need?
There seems to be active destruction of the tanks, so it doesn't seem likely the community will actively care for them.
Will the finished tanks belong to individuals?
If so, can they afford the maintenance costs in the form of labor/materials?

The most durable/cheapest design will be self sustaining , and that will take human intervention.
I can't get my family to put away clean laundry , so I have no suggestions on how to motivate people a world away, but it seems like necessity for long term success in this project.

I was just thinking about growing hardy bananas  for the  leaves and trunks as an alternative to cardboard mulch.

I think the amount of charcoal one would get from a given retort volume of leaves,paper or cardboard is much less than a similar volume of woody material.

If you pack the leaves/paper/cardboard tightly I think their flatness would interfere with the free flow of gasses needed in a retort.

If you are using a flame cap method, I think it would take a lot of time/effort.
Even small diameter twigs take more time and effort to get the same amount of char than it would have taken with larger chunks of wood.

If you took the effort to process these materials into pellets, they should pyrolize quite nicely in a TLUD.