[Artemisia] "urbanite" construction experience?

[Tamar Black Sea]

Oh boy Your Grace!!!

That is one seriously loaded question :-) . Years ago, just after I 
finished my degree in history, I became obsessed with having to build a 
stone wall. I decided to build a dry stone wall with the stones that are 
about 12 inches under the soil where I live; which happens to be the 
north east shore of where Lake Bonneville used to be about 10,000 years 
ago. (I like to joke that we live on lake front property.) The stones 
that are here are smoothed and rounded cobble that rolled around the 
edges of the lake. They are kind of like deformed bowling balls. I 
quickly discovered that you cannot make a foundation with them, dry or 
otherwise.

I needed something that was cheap (ie free) for a foundation and decided 
to get broken up concrete, ...urbanite... to use for the foundation. I 
got truck-loads of it from the local dump. It worked spectacularly well 
compared to the cobble bowling balls. Of course, everything works better 
than bowling balls so I may not be the best judge. :-)

My drystone bowling ball wall fell apart in short order so I eventually 
gave in and used a mortar and "chinking" system. The wall is far from 
perfect, but it is still standing to this day. I admit, that I gave into 
temptation here and there and used the "urbanite" in difficult places 
like corners because "urbanite" is so much more uniform a building 
material than cobble bowling balls.

When you haul "urbanite" around, be careful of spiders. I found a bunch 
of black widows under the concrete chunks that I picked up from the dump.

So my vote on the value of urbanite, for what it is worth:

        It is easy, it is cheap,  but it is ugly.

If the famous Duke Guy from Caid found a way to make "urbanite" look 
good, I would sincerely love to see it because I genuinely like it as a 
building material....But then again, that is compared to "bowling balls".

YIS,
Tamar Black Sea

Allen Hall wrote:
> Greetings All,
>
> I was wondering if anyone on the list here has experience doing construction 
> projects with "urbanite".
>
> For those that don't know what "urbanite" is.... the substance is more 
> commonly known as broken up concrete sidewalk and driveways.  Very common in 
> urban area dumps.
>
> My understanding is that Duke Guy from Caid has been building a castle from 
> this substance and has made good progress.
>
> So I'm wondering if any of you list lurkers knows anything about it.  Never 
> know when you'll need ALOT of material for a wall at little to no cost.  No 
> cost except for much labor.
>
> YIS,  Alan 
>
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