Building Recycled Houses: What is Papercrete?

Learn about using papercrete to build recycled houses.

By Gordon And Laura Solberg
Updated on November 25, 2022
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by AdobeStock/Andy Dean

What is papercrete? Learn how to make this building material out of paper pulp, cement, and sand. Get tips on papercrete roofing and waterpoofing papercrete.

Sure, we’d heard the rumors about paper houses, but our initial reaction was largely incredulous: What homebuilder with a lick of sense would invest his time, energy and money in literally a house of cards? Well, then we ran across Gordon and Laura Solberg, publishers of the Earth Quarterly newsletter and self-appointed chroniclers of the paper building movement. In touting paper’s pluses, both ecologic and economic, the Solbergs covinced us to take another look at this innovative, dirt-cheap construction method. We came away enthusiastic converts eager to share the news. Read on for a “papercrete” primer that could have you building your house — or addition or outbuilding — for as little as $1 a square foot! — MOTHER

In recent years a small band of innovative homebuilders has been building houses out of papercrete.  What is papercrete? It’s essentially an industrial-strength made of recycled paper or cardboard, sand, and Portland cement. The concept for using papercrete to build recycled houses is simple: You build a mixer (akin to a huge kitchen blender), mix the dry ingredients with water to form a slurry, cast the slurry into blocks or panels and let, it dry. When it hardens, papercrete is lightweight, a good insulator (up to R-2 per inch), holds its shape even when wet and is quite strong, with a compressive strength of 300 pounds per square inch (psi). Moreover, papercrete is remarkably inexpensive, since all of the ingredients except for the cement are available for free or nearly free. Given that our landfills are clogged with more than 50 million tons of paper and cardboard annually, and that a bought-and-paid-for home remains beyond the financial means of millions of American families, building with recycled paper simply makes sense.

Papercrete has been independently rediscovered a number of times since the 1980s — by James Moon of Tucson, Arizona, Eric Patterson of Silver City, New Mexico (who was the subject of a PBS documentary several years ago), and Mike McCain of Crestone, Colorado. We say “rediscovered” because papercrete is not a new concept: It was patented back in 1928, but the patent expired unused since there was no profit to be made in so easy and inexpensive an idea.

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