Hi All

We finally have our Little Dragon supplying beautiful aircrete. Turns out the issue was the water quality. We were using well water which for whatever reason was reacting with the foaming agent (seventh generation soap) and causing a reaction which collapsed the bubbles.

I went to our co-op and filled up a 5-gallon jug with their reverse osmosis water station and voila! The collapsing weak aircrete we had known from previous testing became an entirely different material altogether, thick, viscous, holding its shape. Beautiful. Just like the videos.

I would like to mention that I had a hard time finding any information regarding water quality and its effect on aircrete. I think that this should be mentioned on the front page of the little dragon, it took us a few months of testing to overcome this obstacle and it would be nice to save others the trouble!

Blessings,
Levi

FoamAir,

Great PDF! Thank you FoamAir for the walkthru. We are equally excited about this material and its potential for long-lasting, economical, and beautiful housing. Seems like we are using the proper ratios based on what you mentioned in the PDF which matches up with what is described through Domegaia's videos and website. I suspect the issue might be with our well water source so we are going to try again using the Seventh Generation dishsoap with Reverse Osmosis filtered water from our food co-op in the little dragon.

Hajjar,

Also! In addition to that test, we ordered a bottle of the Drexel Foam Concentrate from RuralKing.com as recommended on Domegaia's Foaming Agents page. We are very exctied to see how this performs as it is highly recommended on Domegaia's Foaming Agents page.

The volumetric ratio between (Water):(Seventh Generation Soap) is 35:1 as posted on Domegaia.com.
For the (Water):(Drexel Foam Concentrate) it seems that the ratio might be 160:1?
What ratio would you recommend for the (Water):(Drexel Foam Concentrate) to make AirCrete?

Thank you for your support, it is greatly appreciated.
Levi

Hi Hajjar,

Thank you for the feedback, I just confirmed the weight of a liter of foam on my kitchen scale to be 92 grams per liter which is in the range you mentioned. Again we are using the seventh generation soap as a foaming agent while running the little dragon at 55 psi. The aircrete is still collapsing, same as before.

Please advise. Perhaps a new foaming agent is in order? Or perhaps the well water we are using might contain minerals that react with the soap or perhaps the concrete?

Thank you for your help. Very excited to get our aircrete operation dialed and start building!

^^some examples of aircrete collapsing. that aircrete shown in the cardboard box was filled to the brim. and it collapsed more than half the height! any tips come to mind?

I have had difficulty creating long-lasting foam using the seventh generation dish soap. The aircrete mixes well and pours with a light velvety texture, however after about 20 minutes in the mold, it starts to rapidly collapse, within a minute or two, down to half of its poured volume.

I am using the ratios found on the website:

Little Dragon 5-gallon Bucket
-35:1 water:detergent

Aircrete 5-gallon Bucket (added in this order)
-10.5 lb portland "low alkalai type II/V" cement
-6.3 lb water
Concrete Slurry is mixed thoroughly
-rich hearty foam @~60 psi is added to fill up the rest of the 5-gallon bucket
Aircrete Slurry is mixed thoroughly

This mixture is about 1/3 concrete slurry and 2/3 foam, per one of domegaia's videos.

This same mix and procedure had worked out for one batch in the past and it hasn't worked since. Maybe because that was on a somewhat hot day (85 degF), it is colder now (60 degF), do you think that temperature difference would create such a drastic change in aircrete formation? I cant think of anything else that would be different..

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!