In recent years, the housing problem has not affected rare citizens in our country. This situation is especially painful for young families who are almost unrealistic to acquire their own housing without getting into loans on bondage terms.
In many ways, this situation is associated with the incredible cost of building materials, at the price of which we can assume that they are made exclusively on gold equipment. Is it possible to somehow fix such an annoying situation? Of course! The way out of the situation will be arbolite. It’s not difficult to do it yourself, but this technology will save a lot of money.
What is this all about?
The younger generation hardly remembers them, but in Soviet times almost every second private house was made of these blocks. In fact, these are lightweight building panels made of wood chips and cement.
To reduce the cost of production, conifers are most often used, but the best material is obtained from hardwood chips. In the latter case, the construction of houses made of wood concrete is somewhat more expensive, but the finished buildings are much better.
According to GOST, the use of other types of organic fillers is allowed. So, in the southern regions, construction technology was recently widespread, in which even chopped straw was added to the blocks.
Alas, after the 60s, when there was a boom in panel construction, more than a hundred factories were no longer needed. Production was curtailed, but they almost forgot about good material. It is urgent to correct this annoying misunderstanding!
What are the standard sizes?
To do arbolite with your own hands, you need to have at least a basic understanding of the basic standards used in its production. The requirements of GOST 19 22284 state that in order to obtain the highest quality material, only wood chips with dimensions 40x10x10 mm should be used. The needles and leaves in the fill should be no more than 5%, and the volume of the bark should be no more than 10%. As mentioned above, the best arbolite is obtained from clean and dry chips of deciduous trees.
Oddly enough, but some recommendations on the typical block sizes do not exist in nature. Of course, in this matter you should focus on your own needs and opportunities. Having filled blocks a couple of meters in size, you may encounter the inability to transport them to the construction site.
Manufacturing recommendations
During this time, the sugars contained in the wood will completely collapse, and the finished material will not swell in the future. Of course, it is necessary to prepare the right amount of raw materials: shavings and sawdust are used as filler, the ratio of which should be approximately 1: 1 or 1: 2.
We strongly recommend periodically carefully shoveling up sawdust and shavings, as otherwise there will be no air access to the deep layers of the tree. And further. Take care in advance of the presence of a concrete mixer, since manually you just can’t mix the finished composition with enough quality.
Chemistry
To make arbolite with your own hands, you need not only wood shavings and sawdust. So, pre-purchase Portland cement 400, as well as chemical additives. These include calcium chloride, water glass and aluminum sulphate. All additives should be harvested in an amount of 2-4% of the weight fraction of cement.
Getting to work
If the chips you have prepared do not quite correspond to the typical sizes that were given in our article, we recommend that you immediately pass it through the chopping and grinding machine.
Next we carry out the primary sorting of the material, removing various impurities, large pieces of bark and needles from the chips. Otherwise, it will not be possible to obtain a monolithic arbolite. You can do this with your own hands if you sift the raw materials through a sieve of the appropriate diameter. It is also important to remove excess wood dust, which can have a negative effect on the texture of the cement slurry.
The best option is screening on a special screen, which gives the output the most clean and selected chips. To make arbolite out of it with your own hands, after the sieving procedure, we add about 20% of qualitatively dried sawdust (preferably hardwood) to the primary raw materials.
Having carefully shoveled the resulting mixture, soak the wood in water, to which water glass was previously added. In order for the material to harden faster, picking up minerals from the water, it is advisable to add technical calcium chloride there as well.
Please note that according to GOST standards and the requirements of sanitary and epidemiological stations, any building material must be absolutely harmless to human health. If we talk about wood, then some types of fungi and mold parasitizing on it can be dangerous for you. To completely destroy them, we recommend introducing a small amount of slaked lime into the mixture.
Since making do-it-yourself arbolite without these additives is undesirable, they must be immediately purchased in the required quantity.
Molding
After that, load a portion of the composition into a concrete mixer, add water and cement, mix thoroughly. In the ideal case, automatic mixers are used, from which the mixture is fed under pressure into molds, where it is pressed on automatic machines.
Since in most farms this can never be obtained, the finished composition is simply removed from the mixer and placed into molds. You can make them from sufficiently strong and high-quality wood. To make finished blocks easier to get, it is best to drape their inner part with film or linoleum.
Remember that the geometric proportions of the forms should be as correct as possible, otherwise the construction of houses from wood concrete will be greatly complicated. To properly seal the mixture (without the formation of air pockets), it is better to use electric rammers. If there is no opportunity to buy it, the manual option will also work.
To make a normal monolithic arbolite, such a device can be made of wood by simply upholstering it with sheet metal to ensure proper weight.
After excess moisture drains and the unit takes on the desired shape, it is placed under the press, previously wrapped in plastic wrap. Exposure takes place over ten days, and the ambient temperature is considered to be optimal not higher than 15 degrees Celsius.