harveylacey.com » compressed earth blocks

Moves and changes, RecycledPlasticBlockHouses.com

wroughtn_harv — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 04:34:30 +0000

We’ve started another website just for the plastic block topic. I’ll find a way to make a link on here that’s permanent for those who stumble on to this site looking for information on the blocks.

http://www.recycledplasticblockhouses.com

We received some drawings today

wroughtn_harv — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:27:37 +0000

These drawings are courtesy of Dr. Owen Geiger at www.GRISB.org

These are drawings for making the block box press. We have photos and a material list in an earlier post below. Continue to read will take you to more drawings by Dr. Geiger.

Dr. Geiger has been involved from early on. Everytime I would vary away from the original concept he would be on to me to get back on track. He shares the vision of a manual system that can be used by the semi-skilled under the worst of conditions to create shelter and industry. Dr. Geiger is now in Thailand working with locals who make CEB’s (compressed earth blocks).

Another day, another compression test

wroughtn_harv — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:24:53 +0000

I took the truck to Pearson Stone and we weighed the front axle weight. 6,800 pounds. That means 3,400 pounds per front wheel weight.

I went to the shop and put the front of the truck up on wood blocks. Then I jacked up one wheel and placed a ten pound plastic block under the wheel with a piece of steel on top of the block to eliminate the distortion caused by the tire patch only being on part of the block.

The block compressed about three quarters of an inch with the weight on it. When I removed the weight the block returned to its original shape.

I repeated the experiment with a nine pound block. The compression was about an inch and a half this time.

It will take some more tests by those a lot smarter than me to figure out the ideal weight of a block for making walls for a shelter. As far as I am concerned that is just work that has to be done. Engineers can figure out how much strength is required. Then plastic blocks can be tested and we’ll have the information we need.

We did a compression test today

wroughtn_harv — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:42:43 +0000

We don’t have access to an academics lab to do testing on the blocks. So I did the next best thing…

Click on the “more” for photos and more dialog..

As you can see, the block was distorted in our redneck/red truck compression test.

This is a redneck’s red truck that weighs fifteen thousand pounds or so just about any day of the week empty. Most of the weight is on the front axle when it’s empty, diesel motor and all. I think an estimate of two ton or four thousand pounds or so would be a safe estimate of weight applied to the block.

One of the neat things about plastic is its resiliency. If you look close I think you’ll agree that even if the block failed the two ton redneck red truck weight bearing test it will still work just fine in a wall.