Anyone have experience with Limecrete?

I'll be building a barn in the spring and I was thinking of giving it a gravel trench foundation with a poured limecrete grade beam on it. I have professional experience with lime putty, and with cement and concrete too, but I've never used natural hydraulic lime before and I can't find any reports online of people using it in this way.

I'm thinking of using NHL5, as this is the NHL that would most closely resemble the strength and rigidity of cement, and then I'd just go about it as if it was concrete, in that I would choose the dimensions of the grade beam based on recommendations for concrete, then build it a mold and put rebar in it, just like concrete.

This is my tentative plan, anyways. I'd like to hear from anyone with experience with NHL's, to see if this sounds good enough or just too risky. I don't want to risk ruining the whole barn over a few bags of cement.... but it would be nice to find an alternative.

PS - just to say in advance that I'm not a fan of fly ash, there's evidence that it's quite toxic and I'm trying to reduce my exposure to weird unhealthy things!

Sorry for the tardy reply. I have limited experience, but know that structural application will not meat most building load dynamic. I work designing, building and restoring barns and I am fairly confident that the "moment and dynamic loads of these structures are to great for the application of limecrete as described and/or without PE approval that has experience. I will give some contact info if you don't have them already, and suggest looking at just the gravel trench, then some mounding modalities with tectonically stabilized gravel pad as one suggestion, geopolymere as another, natural cement and/or some nice dry laid stone as has been down for millenia. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,

j

Info worth reading through:

http://www.greenconcreteus.com/cement.html

http://www.cchrc.org/docs/reports/Geopolymer_Project_Final_Report.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolymer_cement

http://geopolymerhouses.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/the-geopolymer-shop/

http://www.geopolymer.org/applications/ltgs-brick-low-cost-construction-material

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/pdf/MgO-GENERAL.pdf

http://www.romancement.com/

http://www.naturalcement.org/

http://www.rosendalecement.net/index.html

http://www.naturalpozzolan.com/index.html

http://www.romanconcrete.com/

http://www.americanlimetechnology.com/tradical-hemcrete/

http://www.lime.org.uk/limecrete-floor/

http://www.nigelcopsey.com/reports/summary/summary_lime.pdf

http://www.scotlime.org/en/materials-analysis/

I was going to post a new topic but this one is as well for resurrection because I feel it is important to share and gain perspective.

Paul mentioned geopolymers in one of the podcasts (can't recall which in particular) and I tend to think similarly to his stated sentiment ; that the modern day "concrete corps" geopolymer kick is simply an excuse to sell hypnotised plebs more toxic-gick™.

But BritansHiddenHistory provoked a serious interwebs search (Presearch) on the subject recently and I begin to understand that this natural building material is a deliberately obscured technology designed to protect the guilty and confuse the innocent.

If you have a time to watch these through tell me why I (we) do not have a cause for suspicion and good reason to open up this can of (beneficial) worms.


Ross has previously linked the Welsh language to Egyptian communication symbology and this video brings geopolymers into the mix. It also put me on the trail of Prof. Joseph Davidovits.

They came from America to build Easter Island

Explains so much, especially the deforestation, which — if you think about it —  simply does not make any sort of sense otherwise. Prof. D's website sells a book with natural geopolymer recipes. I'm fiat poor. Can we Permie-philes (careful) make an arrangement to split the cost I wonder? Also, top-tip: Oxalic Acid can be found in Rhubarb.

Liquid Stone
If you have an aversion to feeding a conspiracy habit I can not recommend this one. I'll just leave it right there. Don't be tempted (but marble recipe please).


I have come to realise that I'm a visual learner. So the recipe book [https://www.geopolymer.org/shop/] on it's own won't help that much. but I would gleefully pay for a vid' like Josiah's recent production which is more than a decent documentary.  https://permies.com/w/greenhouse#1291602

Yours in service to a shiny clean world,
always feel free to correct me;
SeeKay