Everything You Need to Know About Building With Aircrete

I love learning new things and I recently learned how to work with a new building material called Aircrete.

Learning how to make Aircrete and how to build with it was a great opportunity for me, as I hope to someday transition from van life into a tiny home. Aircrete could be the perfect low-cost, easy-to-work-with for someone like me.

Learning how to build with Aircrete provides me with a cost-effective and easy-to-use option when the time comes. I attended a workshop offered by a group of builders called Dome Gaia. They travel and provide workshops and also offer workshops at their base in Texas in which they teach people how to build Aircrete homes.

One of the benefits of working with Aircrete is that it’s incredibly lightweight, making it much easier to work with than cement blocks. Another advantage is that it’s very forgiving. You can cut it with a pruning blade or other gardening tools. It’s also very insulative.

Another great thing about Aircrete is it’s affordable. While 1 bag of cement would yield 4 blocks for standard cement blocks, you will get 16 blocks of Aircrete. This is because a large portion of the material is air bubbles.

I attended a 10-day workshop onsite, where you can either stay in a tent or a vehicle (like I did). They are also building guest quarters. They have porta-potties and showers. They even offer a meal plan.

Every day we learned and built. Putting what we learned into immediate use was the perfect way to cement the information into our brains.

We worked on a 16-foot dome. The walls go up about 9 feet before they start curving in. The homes are beautifully structured, with rooms, windows, and built-in furnaces.

This material makes a lot of sense for someone like me because the bricks are so light which means I can do a lot on my own and without any fancy machinery. Its manageable material requires much less manpower than regular cement. I was so happy I had the opportunity to work with it.

Building with Aircrete

I hope you enjoyed learning about aircrete. What a breakthrough in affordable and easy-to-manage building materials. Would you try building with aircrete? Do you have any experience with it? Let’s chat in the comments section.

Next, check out my Top Nomad Hacks From the People Living Their Best Van Life.