How to make polystyrene concrete with your own hands?

Concrete is one of the best inventions of mankind in the field of construction in the entire history of civilization, but its classic version has one fundamental drawback: concrete blocks weigh too much. Unsurprisingly, engineers have worked hard to make the material less dense, yet very durable. As a result, several modified versions of concrete were created, and one of the most popular among them is polystyrene concrete. Contrary to popular belief, it, like ordinary concrete, can be mixed with your own hands right at home.

As befits any other concrete mix, polystyrene concrete assumes the use in the first place cement, sieved sand and plasticizers. Water is also necessary, and its quantity is important to calculate perfectly accurately. Basically, if there is a lot of moisture, you will immediately notice it: a too liquid mass will provoke the entire suspension to float. If the composition is too thick, the consequences will be revealed later - inappropriately thickened polystyrene concrete has an increased tendency to cracking. In addition, you need to add and polystyrene.

This combination of ingredients is already enough for the mass to be universal and can be used in various conditions. Adding any additional components is not required - the standard set of components is enough for polystyrene concrete to be used for all main areas, namely: building construction, installing lintels and floor pouring.

A feature of polystyrene concrete is that its components have different densities, and therefore need very careful mixing, otherwise there can be no question of mass homogeneity. Heavy equipment for mixing polystyrene concrete is not required, although it can be used in the production of building materials on an industrial scale. At the same time, even amateur builders do not knead the composition manually - it is advisable to acquire at least the simplest concrete mixer.

In conditions of large private construction, if polystyrene concrete needs at least 20 cubic meters, it is relevant to use a separate electric generator. It will allow the produced mass to be supplied to the place of laying without interruption, and in fact in rural areas, where they are usually engaged in amateur construction, interruptions in voltage are quite likely.

Filling is possible from a certain distance, but for the convenience of performing large-scale work, it is much more convenient to acquire mobile installation for mixing polystyrene concrete. Another thing is that its purchase is very expensive for the owner, and in the process of building one object, even a rather large one, it will not have time to pay off. Thus, such equipment is relevant for professional construction crews, but should hardly be considered as a solution for individual construction.

You can also clarify that in large enterprises, of course, the automation of the process is organized an order of magnitude higher. The best examples of modern technology - fully automated conveyor lines - allow you to dispense over 100 m3 of finished material daily, moreover, already formed into blocks of the required size and shape. Even midsize businesses cannot afford such equipment, which instead rely on relatively compact and inexpensive fixed lines.

On the Internet, you can find various recommendations regarding the proportions of all components included in the recipe, but in each case the correct composition will be different. You shouldn't be surprised at this: just like regular concrete, the polystyrene version comes in different grades, each of which is suitable for specific tasks. This is what should be dealt with in the first place.

Grades of polystyrene concrete by density are designated by the letter D and a three-digit number, which indicates how many kilograms of weight are about 1 m3 of solidified mass. Less dense solutions whose grade is lower than D300 are not suitable for either floor screed or wall construction: they are very porous and therefore brittle, unable to withstand significant stress. Such blocks are usually used as thermal insulation.

Polystyrene concrete within D300-D400 is called heat-insulating and structural: it also provides thermal insulation, and can be used for low-rise construction, but only on condition that it does not become a load-bearing support for heavy structures. Finally, compositions with a density of 400 to 550 kg per 1 m3 are called structural and thermal insulation. They are no longer suitable for full-fledged thermal insulation, but they can withstand a higher load.

Now you can go directly to the proportions. In each case, we will take 1 cubic meter of granular polystyrene as an invariable basis. If we take M-400 cement for mixing, then 160 kg of cement should be taken per cube of polystyrene for the production of D200 concrete, for D300 - 240 kg, D400 - 330 kg, D500 - 410 kg.

The amount of water as the potential density grows also increases: it is necessary to take, respectively, 100, 120, 150 and 170 liters. And also saponified wood resin (SDO) is often added, but very little of it is needed and the less, the higher the density: 0.8, 0.65, 0.6 and 0.45 liters, respectively.

The use of cement of a lower grade than M-400 is highly undesirable. If the grade is higher, you can save some cement by making the mass partially on sand.

The use of the LMS, which is considered optional, deserves special attention. This substance is added for the reason that it creates small air bubbles in the concrete, which increase the thermal insulation properties. At the same time, a small share of LMS in the total mass does not radically affect the density, but if you absolutely do not need thermal insulation, you can save on the production of polystyrene concrete without adding this component to it.

The necessary components are plasticizers, but they were not considered in the proportions above. This happened because each manufacturer offers products with completely different properties, so it is reasonable to read the instructions on the container, and not be guided by some general logic. At the same time, special plasticizers are often not used at home, using liquid soap or dishwashing detergent instead.

Making polystyrene concrete with your own hands is not a particularly difficult task, but it is important to withstand the preparation procedure, otherwise the material will turn out to be unreliable, will not be able to meet the best expectations, or it will simply be cooked in insufficient or excessive quantities.Let's figure out how to get good expanded polystyrene concrete without obvious mistakes.

Although the proportions above are given correctly, they are rarely used at home: they take into account too large volumes, which are not only not used in private construction, but are also difficult to measure. For greater convenience, amateur craftsmen use the conversion to buckets - this is a kind of common denominator for kilograms of cement, liters of water and cubic meters of polystyrene. Even if we need a solution based on a cubic meter of granules, all the same, such a volume will not fit into a household concrete mixer, which means it is better to measure with buckets.

First you need to understand how many buckets of cement are needed to mix the mass. Typically, a standard 10 liter bucket of cement weighs approximately 12 kg. According to the above proportions, 240 kg of cement or 20 buckets are needed to prepare D300 grade polystyrene concrete. Since the total mass can be divided into 20 "portions", we determine how many other materials are needed for one such "portion", dividing the amount recommended in proportions by 20.

A cubic meter of polystyrene is a volume equal to 1000 liters. Divide it by 20 - it turns out that for each bucket of cement you need 50 liters of granules or 5 10-liter buckets. Using the same logic, we calculate the amount of water: in total it needed 120 liters, when divided into 20 parts, it turns out 6 liters per serving, you can even measure them with ordinary bottles from various drinks.

The most difficult thing is with the LMS: in total, it was needed only 650 ml, which means that for each portion - only 32.5 ml. Of course, small deviations are permissible, but remember that a decrease in dosage negatively affects the thermal insulation properties, and an excess makes the material less durable.

The same formula is used to calculate the proportions of the components for the manufacture of polystyrene concrete of any other brands: determine how many buckets of cement are needed per 1 m3 of granules, and then divide the corresponding volume of other components by the number of buckets.

It is necessary to knead polystyrene concrete, observing a certain procedure, otherwise the resulting mass will not be homogeneous, which means that the blocks from it will not be strong and durable. The sequence of steps is supposed to be as follows:

• all polystyrene flakes are poured into the concrete mixer and the drum is turned on immediately;
• the plasticizer or detergent that replaces it is dissolved in water, but not all the liquid is poured into the drum, but only a third of it;
• in a relatively small amount of moisture and plasticizer, polystyrene granules should soak for some time - we go to the next step only after each granule is probably soaked;
• after that, you can pour the entire volume of cement into the concrete mixer, and immediately after it pour in all the remaining water;
• if the LMS is part of your recipe, it is poured in the very last, but it must first be dissolved in a small volume of water;
• after adding SDO, it remains to knead the entire mass for 2 or 3 minutes.

Actually the process of home dilution of polystyrene concrete can be easier if you buy it dry and just add water. The packaging will say which brand of building material should be obtained at the output, and it should also indicate exactly how much fluid is needed to get the expected result.

For instructions on making polystyrene concrete with your own hands, see the video below.