Huffing and puffing won’t blow her house down.

Cortez resident Virginia Nabity is one of a few resourceful Colorado builders who are using papercrete — a combination of scrap paper and cement — to build their homes.

"The city of Cortez doesn’t recycle its newspapers," says Nabity. "Building a papercrete house is a much better use of this landfill than just putting it in the dump."

Over the last year, Nabity has collected between 600 and 700 bundles of The Cortez Journal as well as a number of other publications. "We turn them into a bucket of gray gooey goop," she jests.

During the construction process, scrap paper from magazines, newspapers and cardboard is gathered and combined with water in a giant mixer in order to make a slurry. After time, the water acts to re-pulp the paper, which is then added to cement in place of sand and rocks.

Not only does this combination make good use of waste materials, it is also a very economical way to build. "It cost me $1,000 for all of the cement materials," Nabity says. "It normally costs $5,000 just to pour the foundation of a typical framed house."

Laurin Desseaux, a local carpenter who is helping Nabity build her home, says that once the paper pulp is mixed with the cement, it is formed into blocks that measure seven inches by one foot.

"These [papercrete] blocks are much lighter than the typical cinder block," says Desseaux. However, the carpenter said that the final material is just as good, if not better, than an adobe-style house and has some distinct advantages over the "typical home."

"A papercrete wall receives an insulation rating of R-30 to R-33, while a framed 2x6 wall filled with fiberglass insulation would normally receive a rating of R-19 to R-21," says Desseaux. This means that with a minimal amount of work, the house will retain heat much better.

"I usually light the wood stove first thing in the morning," says Nabity, "and this house hardly ever drops below 60 degrees." Also, papercrete walls are nearly fire-retardant, Desseaux says. "If the wall was exposed to a fire it would just smolder," he says. "A 4-to-1 cement-to-paper ratio will not burn."

Papercrete homes are installed with standard plumbing and electricity and can be built to multiple levels with a traditional or papercrete roof, say the builders.

"We started with a basic floor plan," Desseaux says. The papercrete addition was tacked on to an already existing straw-bale structure, he says.

"The house is roughly 1500 square feet with additional sand added to the outer walls for support," says Desseaux.

Nabity says that one of the things she learned along the way was that sometimes you have to compensate for inconsistencies in the materials. "Depending on how fast they dry, the papercrete blocks can become concaved," she says. "If you know the limitations of the materials, however, you don’t make as many mistakes."

Other considerations to make before beginning construction on a papercrete building are city and county building ordinances, wearing gloves to avoid cement poisoning, and the average weather for the area.

"Normally, building with papercrete would fall under the same codes as an adobe-style house," Desseaux says. "And the warmer the average climate, the better the drying and building conditions are."