The subject of stone building and Dale's recycling reminded me of my father's use of pieces of broken driveway to build a shed. When I was a boy, my father enlarged our driveway. He first had to remove the old driveway. My then brother-in-law had a rock drill and stone splitting wedges. He drilled a grid pattern of holes, about 18 inches apart and we proceeded to split the old driveway apart. We ended up with a large pile of more-or-less square, uniformly sized blocks about 4 to 6 inches thick. My father was raised poor (Not poorly. My siblings and I like to say that both my parents were raised in the Depression so we were too). He immediately saw the possibility of using the blocks to build the walls of a shed. He dug up some dirt from the
yard, sifted it and added some cement mix to make
concrete for the slab, posts, beams and mortar. He built some forms to make steel reinforced posts and then picked out the best looking blocks to make the walls, finished side out. He poured a reinforced tying beam across the top of the wall and laid in anchor bolts for the roof. It is still standing, after almost 40 years. The roof has not held up and needs rebuilding. I will try to get some pictures of it to post, but it may take awhile.
He experimented with using blocks as thermal mass in a
greenhouse. I don't know if it made much difference. He also used some blocks as pavers.
