Paper concrete

[RossM]

I am currently planning my wood fired oven and want to make sure I get it right first time, I have been researching the use of paper concrete as an under hearth insulation medium, has anyone out there had any experience with this type of construction?

[Laurentius]

Re: Paper concrete

[QUOTE=RossM;155825]I am currently planning my wood fired oven and want to make sure I get it right first time, I have been researching the use of paper concrete as an under hearth insulation medium, has anyone out there had any experience with this type of construction?[/QUOTE

And what does your research tells you? I would place it in the same category as sand, broken bottles, straw/mud mixture, they all have insulating properties for different application, but thermal heat retention of an oven is not one.

[david s]

Re: Paper concrete

I have not tried it, but from what I understand you pulp the recycled paper as though you were making paper, but you add cement. The paper fibres act as insulating spaces between the cement. Do you have any results on its insulating capacity or resistance to heat? You could make up two identical samples of vermicrete and paper concrete, allow them to dry and test their insulating properties on an electic glass topped stove using a stopwatch and IR thermometer. I tried this when comparing vermicrete and foamcrete and was pleasantly surprised to find the foamcrete performed a little better than the vermicrete. When testing absorbency rate for water the foamcrete performed way better than vermicrete ie it's water uptake was way less. About half if I recall correctly. You could try this with the paper concrete. My guess is that your paper concrete won't insulate as well as vermicrete, but test it and report back, it sounds interesting.