When choosing materials for low-rise construction, preference is given to safe, high-tech options with minimal thermal conductivity. Lightweight arbolite concrete, obtained by pressing a mixture of natural wood chips with cement mortar, is an inexpensive and multifunctional building material. The simplicity of manufacturing technology, the availability of raw materials and the necessary equipment make it possible to organize the production of wood concrete in any area and in the required volumes.
The manufactured blocks are used for the construction of load-bearing and non-load-bearing walls, external thermal insulation, construction of basement and interfloor ceilings. Arbolite competes worthy with brick, classic concrete and its varieties. A well-drafted business plan and proper marketing will help you quickly organize the production of popular types of building products from this material, recoup the investment, and achieve a permanent income.
Manufacturing wood concrete is a profitable business
Organizing the production of wood concrete products is profitable and expedient for the following reasons:
- Competition in this production niche is low. The demand for finished products is stable and constantly growing.
- The technology for making wood concrete blocks is simple. Working with all types of equipment used does not require special technical knowledge and skills. To start production, you will need several people with an average salary (depending on the region) for workers without qualifications.
- Production can be organized in small areas of an individual garage or suburban area and at the initial stage produce the required products with your own hands.
- Possibility of starting a business with a small initial investment. A small workshop will require several pieces of inexpensive equipment. The ability to purchase ready-made wood chips eliminates the need for some types of wood chips and reduces initial costs to a minimum.
- Raw materials from wood for producing wood chips, the volume of which in finished products is close to 90%, is cheap. Some regional workshops and industries will give away their woodworking waste free of charge.
- The sale of finished wood concrete products is not limited in any way. The need for environmentally friendly, durable, warm, durable, lightweight and practical material is only increasing over time. The popularity of wood concrete blocks is also explained by their increased size, which speeds up construction work, low load on the foundation, good frost resistance, ease of self-laying and transportation, ease of processing and adjustment to the required size, and good fire safety indicators.
- The initial financial investment is returned within a few months. A well-established business can bring up to 200%-300% profit in a year.
Instructions for self-production
Preparation of raw materials
- Sift the wood chips through a fine sieve to remove dust, sand, and small inclusions.
- Pour 6 buckets of filler into the concrete mixer. Start the drum.
- Dissolve 300–400 ml of chemical additive in 1 bucket of water.
- Slowly pour water into the rotating drum. Wait a few minutes until the wood chips are evenly moistened with the solution.
- Add 1 bucket of dry cement M500 to the drum in small portions. Bring the mixture to a homogeneous state.
Molding
Pour the finished mixture into a trough or tray, from where it will be convenient to scoop it up with a shovel. Cover the tray on which you will form the blocks with film. Place the mold in the corner of the tray. Using a shovel, fill the mold to the brim and compact the mixture with a block. Its shrinkage will be about 30%
If necessary, add concrete. Place the lid in the mold, tap it evenly with a hammer until it drops to the internal height marks of the block. Carefully, maintaining an upright position, remove the box from the unit.
- Remove the cover.
- Place the mold box 15–20 cm from the finished product and begin molding the next one.
To obtain the highest quality blocks, stripping should be done no earlier than 24 hours after molding the product. During this time, the strength of the block will reach 30%. In this case, it is better to make several dozen wooden formworks that can be removed and used every 2-3 days. The blocks will reach 100% strength after 30 days of storage in a warm place, protected from rain and wind.
First stage. The importance of proper business organization
Having decided on the type of future business, you need to draw up a detailed business plan taking into account demand, the required assortment, possible competition, the availability of raw materials, the expected tax burden and other important points. The feasibility of the project must be confirmed by the necessary economic calculations.
The organization of production begins with the registration of a new enterprise or individual entrepreneur. At the same time, the location and area of the production complex is determined. Its territory should accommodate the main workshop, auxiliary premises, staff rooms, warehouses for raw materials and finished products.
Acquisition, installation, adjustment of equipment capable of ensuring the production of the estimated volume of products is the next stage. At the same time, a working team is formed and trained, wood concrete production technology is studied, and a raw material reserve is created for a monthly (minimum) load of the enterprise at full capacity.
Starting investment to start wood concrete production
To organize production on a line with a capacity of 6-7 m³ per shift, investments of up to 500 thousand rubles will be required. Technological equipment (chip cutter, concrete mixer) for the line will cost 45-80 thousand rubles.
More productive equipment costs from 230 thousand rubles. These are universal automated complexes with a concrete mixer, a brick press, a dosing hopper, a belt conveyor and a receiving hopper. The average daily production volume is 50 m³. To ensure the operation of the line, personnel, additional raw materials, and sufficient production space are needed. The most famous line for the production of wood concrete blocks is SGS-L4. To launch and operate the line, investments of up to 1 million rubles will be required.
Manufacturing technology of arbolite blocks
You can set up the production of high-quality wood concrete blocks at home or in a production workshop. These options differ in the level of equipment, automation and productivity.
But the technology for manufacturing wood concrete differs little and consists of the following steps:
- Aging of waste wood pulp under a canopy is at least 30 days.
- Wood crushing. To obtain the required chip sizes, the process can consist of two stages.
- Soaking wood chips to remove sugar – 6 hours.
- A working mixture is prepared (taking into account volume-weight proportions). Requirements for raw materials and finished products made of wood concrete are listed in GOST 19222-84. According to this document, a recipe is being developed to obtain blocks with the required characteristics. Wood chips, cement, water with the necessary additives are introduced into the mixer one by one. Calcium chloride enters the container continuously while mixing is in progress. This ensures its uniform distribution. The duration of the process is 10 minutes.
- Filling the molds with the prepared composition, compacting, compacting.
- Assortment of products of the required density and removal of formwork - after 1-5 days. When the press creates a pressure of 2.5-3 MPa, the molds can be removed immediately.
- Technological curing in a ventilated warehouse, protected from direct sunlight. After 3-5 days the blocks can be stacked, and after 14-20 days they can be transported.
Equipment
The necessary units for the production of wood concrete are sold assembled and include all processing and preparation cycles. Advanced technologies make it possible to produce various volumes of building materials with different sizes. To build a machine with your own hands, you will need the following units:
- wood chip cutter, which you can also design yourself;
- concrete mortar mixer or mixing apparatus;
- Press forms;
- vibration machine.
You can produce wood concrete by organizing the production of blocks yourself, and at the same time minimizing the costs of the necessary equipment. A machine for crushing wood chips can also be made by hand using improvised devices. To save money, the vibrating sieve is replaced with a manual sifting method.
It is recommended to replace the unit for producing the working solution with a concrete mixer. The manual mixing method is unacceptable in this method, as there is a risk of lumps and clots forming in the solution.
Forms of the required size are made from ordinary wooden boxes. It is recommended to cover the bottom and sides with linoleum or polyethylene film, this will allow the composition not to stick to the walls.
When the molds are filled according to the technology, the mixture is compacted. To do this, you will need a hammer for tapping the walls of the container and a drill, which is used to make a brick press. They also use a self-made vibrating table. This machine will reduce production time and increase productivity.
If the conditions for drying the material are not suitable, it is recommended to use a drying chamber. This drying method will increase production costs and make the blocks stronger.
Do-it-yourself machine for wood concrete blocks drawing
- Vibropress with a mold fixation mechanism.
- Form with self-sealing function.
- Lifting and rotating hopper with mechanical suspension.
- Winch for bunker control.
- Mixer.
- Winch for lifting dispensers with suspension.
- Trolley with dispenser for wood chips.
- Cement dispenser on a trolley.
- Container for preparing wood preservative.
- The platform is inclined.
- Pallet.
- Rokla.
- Metal construction.
Technical equipment of the production workshop
The equipment of the enterprise must correspond to its calculated design capacity. Compact machines are suitable for small-scale production. Serial production of wood concrete products helps organize more productive equipment or production lines that combine several types of machines.
Equipment used
The following equipment can be used for various technological processes:
- chipping and crushing machines;
- mechanisms for mixing components;
- dispensers;
- vibrating presses;
- drying chambers.
For the smooth operation of the workshop, you will also need a sufficient number of molds of various sizes, pallets, racks, separators for obtaining several small wood concrete bricks in one mold, void formers and other equipment.
Product range increases profits
By placing the main emphasis on the production of high-quality wood concrete, offering the potential buyer the fullest range of manufactured products, you can count on an increase in production volumes, constant utilization of production capacity and the economic efficiency of an organized business.
The following sizes of blocks are in demand on the building materials market:
| Length (mm) | Thickness (mm) | Height (mm) |
| 390 | 90 | 188 |
| 400 | 200 | 200 |
| 600(500) | 300 | 200 |
The buyer should be given the opportunity to choose products of different densities. According to this indicator, a building material can be structural and thermal insulating. The latter is used to produce an insulating layer and internal partitions. Dense structural blocks are used for the construction of supports, loaded structural elements and load-bearing walls. Their strength and ability to withstand heavy loads can be increased by reinforcement using metal mesh, rods and welded frames.
How to make a chip cutter with your own hands: drawings, design
At the final stage, the chips fall onto the sieve using the blades and fly out of the chip cutter through the unloading hole. At the entrance, the receiving hopper is made in the form of a funnel in order to simplify the supply of raw materials for processing and make this process safe for hands.
When the rotation speed of the shaft with the disk increases, a certain amount of wood raw material may naturally grind into dust; this is bad, although the productivity of the wood chipper increases.
The necessary drawings according to which a homemade rotary hammer crusher can be made for the production of wood concrete are presented below. Since the equipment is homemade, the dimensions of the parts will have to be selected based on your own material. Working drawings of different wood chippers may differ in size and the presence of certain components, but the operating principle remains the same. After voltage B is applied to the equipment, the electric motor transmits its rotation using a V-belt transmission to a drum with blades 4 through a pulley 14 and a shaft.
You only need to put wood waste into the feed hopper, which is immediately processed into chips of optimal length up to 25 mm. By assembling a wood concrete wood chip cutter with your own hands and maintaining the distance between the hammers in a wood concrete crusher, you can produce wood chips up to 25 millimeters long and about 5 millimeters wide. Such wood chips are ideal for making wood concrete blocks or preparing monolithic wood concrete. It is performed at a certain angle, due to which the branches are not thrown back.
If you plan to build a house from self-made wood concrete blocks or monolithic wood concrete, then you will need wood chips. Using it, you will significantly improve the quality of the blocks, and subsequently, after completion of all construction work, it will be useful to you as a garden shredder for processing waste left after the autumn cleaning of the garden, as well as pruning shrubs and trees. You can make a wood chip cutter using a certain set of tools and available materials. The main components of the machine are a chipping disk with knives and a rotor with hammers and blades.
Before constructing a wood chip cutter with your own hands, you need to prepare all the parts. To make the disk you will need a metal sheet mm thick.
What does a wood chipper consist of?
The diameter of the finished product should be approximately mm. A hole is made in the center where the key is placed, and symmetrical slots are made along the outer perimeter. Chips will be discharged through them.
Holes are prepared for fastening knives. You can assemble a wood chip cutter with your own hands using a ready-made disk. In any case, the disk will simultaneously act as a flywheel.
To prepare knives, each of which must have two holes, it is most often recommended to take springs from a passenger car. Chip cutter knives are secured with bolts that are unscrewed and tightened with a hex key. This fact is explained by the fact that the bolts under the screwdriver are not tightened so tightly. Hammers are flat metal plates, the thickness of which is about 5 mm.
They are located on the rotor. These are the parts that are better to buy ready-made. It is necessary to prepare a sieve. When installing knives into a chipper, it is necessary to ensure the required alignment of the knives beyond the plane of the disk.
The difference in the display of knives should not exceed 0.2 mm.
Grinding mode
The cutting edges of the knives must lie in the same plane, the gap between the cutting knives and the counter knives must be uniform 0. In order to increase the resistance of the cutting edge of the knives to chipping during operation, it is recommended:
After sharpening the knives to the required angle, carry out additional sharpening on the back side of the chamfer at a width of 0. After each sharpening, the knives must be kept at rest for at least x hours to relieve fatigue stresses. Note: Chipper knives made from other steel grades are accompanied by additional information in the instructions.
About company. Photo gallery Video gallery. Available in stock: 26 units. Shipment of the Junkkari hjg chopper to the city. Wood splitter hydraulic machine for splitting firewood Japa Finland Quantity: 1 pc. Firewood packer Palax Motti Quantity: 4 pcs.
Firewood packer Palax Packer Quantity: 2 pcs. HJ - Wood chipper from a tractor with hydraulic feed Quantity: 3 pcs. Sharpening machine - IRM Quantity: 1 pc. Band sawmill ZL-60V Quantity: 1 pc. W-Forrest - rotary mulcher with diameter up to mm. Quantity: 1 piece Ordering spare parts. Chippers Wood chippers. Wood splitting equipment Wood splitters and splitting axes.
Choosing a tax system
To conduct business and earn income, mandatory state registration is required. After registering as an individual entrepreneur (IP), individuals have the opportunity to independently choose the taxation system for their activities after making comparative calculations.
The following criteria are taken into account:
- requirements of a specific taxation option;
- scale of production;
- expected income;
- availability of hired workers;
- special regional rates and benefits;
- other features.
In practice, the most beneficial for individual entrepreneurs is the simplified taxation system (STS), which involves two options for calculating the tax charged. The amount of tax payments can be 6% of income (costs are not taken into account) or 5-15% of net income (the difference between income and expenses). Under which option the tax burden will be less, the entrepreneur decides for himself.
How much profit can a business bring?
Let's consider the profitability of an enterprise for the production of wood concrete blocks using the example of a mini-workshop with a monthly productivity of 400 m³ of products. With full loading and sale of the entire volume of finished wood concrete at a small wholesale price of 2500-2800 rubles/m³, the entrepreneur’s income will be 1.0-1.12 million rubles.
After deducting the costs of raw materials, rent or maintenance of premises, taxes, wages, transportation and other expenses, net profit remains. For such a workshop it will be at least 100 thousand rubles. If we take into account that some batches of products were shipped at a higher price, and costs are a variable value and could decrease, profits accordingly increase.
For larger enterprises the figures are more substantial. The above approximate calculations prove the profitability of organizing your own production of building materials from wood concrete.
Advantages and disadvantages of building material
Arbolite blocks are characterized by high energy efficiency, which allows them to be used to equip the walls of a house from the outside. The density of the building material does not allow its use in the construction of multi-story buildings, so such blocks are only relevant for the construction of low-rise buildings. The material can withstand loads during sudden temperature fluctuations, which contribute to the formation of cracks on the walls of the house.
The thermal insulation properties of the material exceed those of brick and standard blocks made of pure concrete. It has absorbed all the best qualities of wood, while remaining fireproof, not collapsing and not smoking under the influence of high temperatures and direct fire. A house made of arbolite blocks retains heat for a long time when the heating is turned off, even at negative temperatures outside. The service life of a material directly depends on its quality and operating procedures. It retains its properties in the temperature range from +25 to -500C. When alternating severe frosts and thaws, the shelf life of wood concrete is reduced.
The material is relatively inexpensive, it is easy to adjust it to the desired size, but the blocks do not have an aesthetic appearance, so to give the structure a respectable appearance, cladding will be needed. Errors in block dimensions, which are difficult to avoid during the production process, can cause uneven seam laying. The light weight of the blocks allows you to save on the quality of the foundation, since high loads will not be placed on it.
