Arbolith with my own hands. Construction of houses from arbolita

In recent years, the housing problem has not affected the rare citizens in our country. This situation is especially painful for young families, who are practically unrealistic to buy their own housing, without getting into loans on bonded terms.

In many respects this situation is connected with the incredible cost of building materials, at the price of which it can be assumed that they are made exclusively on gold equipment. Can I somehow fix this unfortunate situation? Of course! The way out is arbolit. It is not difficult to make it with your own hands, but this technology will save a lot of money.

What is this?

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 construction panels made of wood chips and cement.

To reduce the cost of production, coniferous tree species are most often used, but the best material is obtained from hardwood chips. In the latter case, the construction of houses from the arbolite is somewhat more expensive, but the finished buildings are much more qualitative.

According to GOST, it is allowed to use other types of organic fillers. So, in the southern regions, construction technology was recently distributed, in which even chopped straw was added to the blocks.

Alas, but after the 60s, when the boom for panel construction was over, more than a hundred plants were not needed by anyone. The production was rolled up, but the material was practically forgotten. It is urgent to correct this annoying misunderstanding!

What are the standard sizes?

To do arbolith by yourself, 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 best quality material, only chips with dimensions of 40x10x5 mm should be used. Needles and leaves in the fill should not be more than 5%, and the volume of the bark - no more than 10%. As already mentioned above, the best arbolite is obtained from pure and dry chips of deciduous trees.

Strangely enough, but there are no recommendations on the typical sizes of blocks in nature. Of course, in this issue should be guided by their own needs and opportunities. Bay blocks in a couple of meters in size, you can face the inability to transport them to the construction site.

Recommendations for manufacturing

During this time, the sugars contained in the wood are completely destroyed, and the finished material will not be swollen in the future. Of course, you need to prepare the right amount of raw materials: as a filler, use shavings and sawdust, the ratio of which should be about 1: 1 or 1: 2.

It is strongly recommended that the sawdust and shavings be periodically shoveled carefully, otherwise there will be no air access to the deep layers of the tree. And further. In advance, take care of the presence of a concrete mixer, since manually you simply can not mix the finished composition with sufficient quality.

Chemistry

To do arbolith by yourself, you will need not only wood shavings and sawdust. So, in advance, purchase Portland cement 400, as well as chemical additives. These include calcium chloride, liquid glass and aluminum sulphate. All additives should be harvested in an amount of 2-4% of the weight fraction of cement.

Getting Started

If the chips you have prepared do not exactly correspond to the typical sizes given in our article, we recommend immediately passing it through the chipping machine.

Next, we perform the primary sorting of the material, removing various impurities from the chips, large pieces of bark and pine needles. Otherwise, it will not be possible to obtain a monolithic arbolite. With your own hands, you can do this by sifting the raw material through a sieve of the appropriate diameter. It is also important to remove excess wood dust, which can have a negative effect on the consistency of the cement slurry.

Optimum option - sieving on a special screen, which gives the output the maximum clean and selected chips. To make arbolith out of it with our own hands, after the sieving procedure, we add about 20% of the qualitatively dried sawdust (preferably hardwoods) to the primary raw material.

Carefully shoveled the resulting mixture, soak the wood in water, where previously it was added liquid glass. To material quickly hardened, getting from the water of minerals, it is desirable to add there also technical calcium chloride.

Please note that according to GOST standards and the requirements of sanitary epidemiological stations, any building material must be absolutely harmless to human health. If we talk about wood, then some types of parasitic fungi and mold can be dangerous to you. To completely destroy them, we recommend that a small amount of slaked lime be added to the mixture.

Since it is undesirable to make arbolith by hand without these additives, they must be immediately procured in the required amount.

Forming

After that, load a batch of the composition into the concrete mixer, add water and cement, mix thoroughly. Ideally, automatic mixers are used, from which the mixture under pressure is fed into molds, where it is compressed on automatic machines.

Since in most of the farms this is never obtained, the finished composition is simply removed from the mixer and placed in molds. They can be made from a fairly strong and high-quality wood. To make ready blocks easier to get, it's best to wrap their inner part with film or linoleum.

Remember that the geometric proportions of the molds should be as accurate as possible, otherwise the construction of houses from the arbolite will be greatly complicated. To properly compact the mixture (without the formation of air pockets), it is better to use electric tamping machines. If you do not have the opportunity to buy it, the manual version is quite suitable.

To make a normal arbolith monolithic, you can make such a device out of wood, just covering it with sheet iron to ensure proper weight.

After the excess moisture drains and the block gets the desired shape, it is laid under the press, pre-wrapped with a plastic wrap. The exposure lasts for ten days, with the optimum ambient temperature not exceeding 15 degrees Celsius.