Steve Lansing wrote:Let start with a question, what and how are you building? First, with the clay you have, if you added sand and straw and preesed into bricks, would that work like a form of adobe? Also, if you crush concrete down to powder, it can be made back into concrete again, just balance out mix with more cement.
R Ranson wrote:I don't know much about concrete - but I wonder...
It sounds like you have the perfect resources to make a cob house. Could the concrete be used to create a foundation the build the cob walls on top using some of that lovely clay you have?
The problem with our soil is it absorbs water like a sponge, killing the concrete foundations. As to making cob out of it, I don't know if it would work for cob. It tends to expand to several times it's size when wet. In a wet year the ground can rise over a foot. Never worked with cob, though I've done some research on it. I'm planning on several projects that CEB would be perfect for. First for building a graduated raised garden bed (beds that are on different levels like stairs). Also planning on making a rocket stove grill, wood outdoor fire pit,and a kiln. Obviously I'm gonna need a fireproof building material for it. I'm going to build bio-char briquettes anyway, so a press could be used for that too.