Ever see a concrete house?
 

My job is concrete.. and in an everchanging world you are always on the look out for an option to make more money and cut costs.. i give you the following

http://www.eco-block.com/

yeah you guessed it.. as an example..

benton louisiana, located near bossier city louisiana.. barksdale AFB is near by and b-52's fly over all the time at low altitude..

inside a finished eco block home.. you cant hear the bomber pass over..

in one house where there were no windows or doors installed .. but all the walls and brick as well as the roof was completed.. outside temp was 91F inside with no power was 62F around 2 pm hottest part of the day here.

the total cost of going eco is a little higher.. but the money saved on utilities is enormus over just a few years...

i still think the idea came from a redneck hick like me using old coolers to line a shed hehe

http://eco-blocks.com/ another site

it takes use with a crew of 5 or 6 just 3 days to set it and pour it .. and we are talking about doctor salary houses here

uh forgive me if i put this in the wrong section but it was the only section i could think of putting it in.

and this one

http://www.edcmag.com/CDA/ArticleInf...111727,00.html

I lived in a cement house in Okinawa. They set them up and pour them. It sucks putting up pics, and mildew can be a problem. Typhoons (hurricanes) are not a problem though.

well yeah.. the webs that attach the clips which then later act as the studs can be a pain to find.. lol these houses have a 4 hour fire rateing.. and unlike the old coolers that look like this stuff the smoke is non toxic when it burns.. if the house survives an inspection.. they come back in and glue eco block back up...

also to put in the wiring you dont need conduict... you just lay the wiring in and put a scrap peice of eco block in.. (after the pouring and it sets up) only problem was null spots.. if the rock used in the concrete mix are too big they will hang on the rebarb and inner clips.. you cant use a vibrator on the walls like you can other forms.. lol bad idea.. we use a zaw-zaw with out a blade and run down the sides after its poured.. works great..

you use a pumb truck.. an example shown here

http://www.ernstconcrete.com/html/boom_pumps.html

we made a device that sits on top of the wall and the driver moves it.. this way the concrete is devided down the device we made and the force of the falling concrete is diverted... you can punch a hole easy

and you dont have to stop at just houses. We made a 78 long 4 foot 8 inch tall damn this week for a friends lake he is building.. 10 inches wide inside the eco blocks...

to off set the side with water against it he will put cypress wood to it.. and a cypress wood cap.. we even cut out for next week for a spill way we will attach.. when i get the vid and pics ready ill post them

Here is a link to History Detectives on PBS http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetect...201_index.html
At the bottom of the page. You can see the case of the house Thomas Edison invented. The house was a single pour concrete house.

that's what I was gonna say. Yeah I've seen thousands of concrete houses, and they stand up to super-typhoon's with no problem.

For an early and great example, check out mercermuseum.org. I used to live in the Philly area and visited this fascinating place several times.

hey drider_it, thats a great product, i am also in masonry, mostly flooring , but occasionally i get a few commercial jobs, that have this product, i usually am hanging some type of stone on it, but i still have to prep it with a scatch coat, of portland and sand, but i never have been nack because of substructre failure, because it decayed, or fell apart,
for the most part though, it never has any need for electrical or plumbing behind it, so i am gonna consider it for my own new home .

Thats a thoughtful idea for building! I wish they'd use the Insulated Concrete Forms in South Korea to build 20 story apartments... would be safer.

There's lots of these systems around. The general term is ICF for Insulated Concrete Form. One key advantage up here in Canada is that you can use them when the temperatures start falling below 0 without having to heat them as much because the insulation keeps the uncured concrete from freezing.