How Would You Use Old Phonebooks As a Building Material?

I would soak them in a solution of wood glue and water, then press them so that they turn into bricks.

Hmmm...good question!

I dunno, maybe start by soaking them in some kind of liquid that hardens and binds the pages together into one, solid "brick?" and, while the stuff is still wet, stack them brick-style to build the walls and other stuff. A liquid plastic (to which you add catalyst just before soaking the books) would probably work well, except that you'd want to use one that was fire-resistant, didn't produce off-casting - sickening fumes given off at normal ambient temperatures - and one that doesn't produce poisonous smoke when heated. Some kind of natural binder would be preferable, I think. Something like Gerber Baby Cereal would weld 'em good!

In my own case I'd "let my fingers do the walking" and look in one of 'em for the phone number of a good residential contractor. Then I'd look on another page for the number of a local recycler and call them to come get all these damn phone books littering my lawn before the city finds out and fines me.

What happens when it rains, though?

What about fire resistance?

That is why building codes are established, and why novel materials are looked at with some curiosity by Planning offices in the UK. At the end of the construction job, the structure has to be habitable and healthy to live in, after all!

That was my response.

Also, what's the compressive strength of paper mache? How many phone books would it take to make a brick strong enough to hold a reasonable load?

Impressive Idea. Unsure of the sturdiness but better not built on an area prone with termites.

This is something I've often considered but I ended up building a Lockwood house which is all "farmed" pine wood with an Aluminium exterior cladding.

After all I have seen several Straw bale houses on Tv with plaster coatings on a chicken wire covering and they seem both legal in some countries, reasonably fireproof and very energy efficient.

It might be a very good research project for someone to find a "safe" and cheap way to insect and fireproof these books for reuse.
Bamboo reinforcing however does NOT appeal. Bamboo can have some very unreliable strength characteristics as several early aviators discovered to their cost. Rebar would be a much better idea and not that much more expensive.

Read up on straw bale construction, most of the techniques and solutions would be similar.

Bugs are less of a problem than you might think, for the same reason your phone book isn't full of bugs at home.

Driving rebar through them might be well nigh impossible. Perhaps laying them exactly like bricks...

Or you could frame them followed by stuccoing them after. Use them as bricks between a bare framework. I wouldn't hesitate to use something like an adobe mix as mortar. Adobe is laid using lots more mortar than is used with baked bricks, frequently approaching 1/4 of the width of the original block.

R value of a phone book laying on it's side should be impressive, just watch out for cracks or anything that runs all the way from inside to outside with a lower R value, it can act as a cold tunnel.

Or a bit more intensive; build standard frame construction, shred the books and soak in Boric acid, then blow it wet into the wall and let it dry. They have used this technique and filled the entire void with the wet paper, screed it off, let it dry and sheetrock as normal.

Good thought on your part, if you can't build it there come out west, building code is a bit more flexible.

Emmett

A good reply to a timely question, for sure.

Really, who needs (much less wants) a fat, heavy phone book lying around when you've got the Internet? And who needs (or wants) a copper tether when you've got wireless? For my part, I haven't had a landline in nearly a decade.

Ma Bell may soon find herself in need of part-time work. What better than to leverage what you already know and print DIY masonry?

That's my kind of thinking. GA. I have built and inhabited 3 houses from things somebody else didn't want. In some cases I was paid to haul the material away.

I like your ideas in this post. Any thoughts on how we might be able to utilize the blue plastic shopping bags [currently tossed all over the landscape in poor countries] as a building material?

Of course putting plastic bags around the phonebooks at the foundation would help as far as moisture degradation of the phonebooks.

Plastic does degrade and there is more and more evidence that its chemical breakdown effects are of great danger hormonally.

For the phonebook brick bamboo and or rebar building plastic bags wrapped around the foundation bricks would be of benefit, though not much considering the modern typical plastic page currently ubiquitious.

UV will tear the hell out of plastic.

My contruction tarp roof for the phonebook brick home, loses insulating R values because the tarp roof lets all escape upwards unless there is a double layer tight tied.

The standard Tarp sizes determine the size and layout of the phonebook brick home.

I think it is realistic to accept that a cheap and quick home from found materials must have a tent sort of roof.

Bullet resistance in the order of the walls is good.

So need to rig up a cheap punch for the rebar/bamboo.

Any suggestions? A drill or hole saw, ain't gonna cut it.

Maybe melt the plastic bags & use em as the binder/mortar!

Someon is Scotlan built a house from straw bales, so paper bricks is a good idea. I had access to several thousand IBMPS2 computers from the early 90's . They were made from thick metal and very sturdy. it occurred to me that they could be filled with polystyrene and used as bricks.

I don't know how well they would work as bricks, however you could probably chop them up into appropriate size and use them for insulation.

hello everyone,

i would make papercrete. but it does have its flaws. molds when it gets wet. but it is cheap.

I don't think it's practical, but in a dry climate with proper encapsulation, they could work. I'd imagine they would provide decent insulation too. Also appropriate bracing would be necessary since I don't think they would provide good strength against torsion or shearing.

...but this would be more fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pGvEGFkvNs

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ripping+phonebook&search_type=&aq=f

I agree as far as climate goes. I live on the Texas gulf coast (read hurricanes), so I of course prefer brick on all exterior walls. I know that brick can withstand a 2x4 travelling at a high rate of speed, paper phone books though.... Moisture would also be a problem (read hurricane/tropical storm), high winds, tons of rain, potential flooding. If this were located somewhere in the desert, like those earthship homes, then I can see it as maybe being viable as an insulated wall. The earthship homes use old tires crammed with dirt as insulated walls.

I would actually use a slightly different tact than the others. I would compress them under tremendous pressure in a large press and then simply glue them together. Basically, they would act like a bunch of very short boards. I would remove the covers first, as they typically are coated and will not bond as well. They would be waterproof after you covered them with a sealant.

Look up 'straw bale' houses.

Similar in nature.

Some good concerns were pointed out about using papercrete. This isn't a cutting edge development. PC homes have been standing since 1974 to the best of my research. Consider it as another kind of fibrous cement. Fire, Mold , Water absorbtion and ballistic damage, 2x4 flying through the air, even have been studied and formulas developed to resist or eliminate these issues. For instance, ballistic damage was tested by firiing these rounds more than 50x 357 mag , 30-06, .308, 9mm and 44 mag at point blank and there was no through penetration. All rounds were "absorbed". Same test on a concrete block and the block fails. I expect that a 50 cal sniper round would penetrate with no problem, but i'm not in iraq. I have found a pc material way overpriced on the internet and the company is making a fortune for dirt cheap recycled materials. Proves that if people have to pay through the nose for something that is obviously good then they will. However tell the same people that they can make this themselves for pennies on the dollar and they will scoff and rip the technique/proposal to shreds.

I would soak them in some kind of varnish or shellac, then subject them to pressure, possibly while still soaking.

then you would loose the mold resistance by the natural air dryining . breathability of pc like i said alot of research has been done. this is why i choose it as my building material in these petrolium rich times