Hey Tufanewbe! Don't Give Up! Regarding your pots last year. Do you remember your ratio of sand to cement to styrofoam? The more sand you have in your mix the heavier it is going to be. Alot depends on the size and thickness of the walls in relation to weight. Styrofoam tends to rise to the top of a given layer, so the uneven distribution might account for weight as well. Did you know that you can cover styrofoam forms with tufa? That might help in the weight area, just be sure to use some sort of structural support (i.e. stucco wire, lath) to give it some strength. Now regarding your papertufa. Did you pulp your paper before adding it to your cement and sand? You said you didn't want to mulch your own paper, but I'm not sure if that applies to the shredding itself or breaking down the fibers in water to make a homogenous mixture. If you just added dry paper to the cement and sand, then the paper is going to wick away a whole lot of the water and even though the paper may get completely wet, it will eventually disintegrate because it has not fully bonded with the cement. What you are looking for is a pulp-y glop type of media before you even begin to add the cement and sand. Have you done that before? If not, you take your paper and at least twice as much water as paper to start. Let the paper soak in the water for a few days then take a stucco mixer blade, immersion blender, hand mixer, etc. to run through the paper to break it up. Let it sit a day or so more, then remix until what you see looks kind of translucent and gooey. At this time, you will be ready to add the pulp to the cement. Experiment with small amounts of pulp to cement before you even start to add sand. (lots of folks don't add any sand) See what you have and make a small pot/sculpture/brick. Keep careful notes of your different ratios/formulas/outcomes until you find a mixture that does what you want it to do. Because the paper holds on to moisture, the drying/curing will be slower, especially if your creation is thick or large, but it will make for a very strong end product because of the bond between the paper fibers and the cement. Here's another train of thought from an amazing papercrete artist. Check out jloppnow's post from 10/14/06 (just a page or two back on this list). Jonathon has an amazing recipe that doesn't require pre-soaking and you can see his creation in progress. As I started this out, don't give up! Keep trying different formulas and techniques til you find something that works for you. Jo

Renovator8, I guess they don't all need to be operable, but I don't really like the idea of having windows that don't function. Three of the five windows had fallen sash weights, and rather than rehang the weights, the PO had installed those little side clamps that screw into the window, and then rotate on a cam to push against the stop. I suppose I could just remove all the weights and use the clamps, but that just kinda seems hokey to me. Worthy, thanks for the link. I don't think I would have ever thought of that trick for getting a piece of foam stuffed in around the rope hole - that's pretty darn slick. Do you think there is any benefit over using the foil faced foam, instead of unfaced? I think I have a sheet of unfaced foam leftover. Part of me is thinking that anything I do in this previously un-insulated room is better than where it was, but I'm fighting that feeling, I want to do this one right before it all gets sealed up.

The tank is not as much of a problem as the drain field. Just remember that if you cover the access into the tank you will be pulling up stones to pump the tank.

We have several friends with Paperstone counters and they all love them. We are installing Ecotop which is made with recycled paper & bamboo fiber sometime in the next few weeks hopefully. Ecotop was created by the same guy who started Paperstone.