Good day everyone, I've been a lurker here for a while, then registered, and this is my first post. Please excuse me if I breech any etiquette. And please excuse me if I'm long-winded. I'm trying to best articulate what I'm trying to do.

My wife and I aim to build our own house. I'm in the research and learning phase, I want our build to be as green and sustainable as possible. My wife comes from a Mediterranean country with a long history of masonry construction, and she is adamant that she doesn't want to live in a stick-house. They actually frighten her.

Her father was a mason, her brother a builder, and she's used to concrete, structural clay tile, and brick and really has a hard time understanding why we shouldn't do the same here. I myself love masonry and have always dreamed of building a stone or brick house since a child. So that's what we are going to do.

But I understand some of the large sustainability issues with modern portland cement and concrete industries, as well as plastic foam, so as attractive as ICFs are I am trying to figure out ways to do a self-build, with insulated masonry, while using as little Portland Cement as possible. We live in the midwest and have harsh winters, so smart site placement and heat retention is important. One advantage that lime has over portland cement is vapor breath-ability, issues like damp, moisture condensation, and mold concern me.

I've been reading a lot; about slipform stone masonry, as well as about older wood-formed cobblestone masonry techniques used in the Ozarks, similar techniques used in lime-mortar flint masonry construction in Britain, older poured "gravel-wall" limecrete and Tabby building in the USA, and historic Tapia - mixed lime and rammed earth - construction in Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and Algeria.

I've read about the use of pozzolans like ash and pumice in lime mortar and concrete. So I have a lot of stuff buzzing around in my head.

I was wondering if anyone had advice on doing lime based masonry building, that's code compliant, and energy efficient in the USA today.

We want to build a two story building envelope with a flat terrace roof. I want to wood-formed laid masonry or poured concrete. For example, slip form or wall height formed, using stone-size aggregate in lime concrete pours. Or incrementally laid thick lime mortar and concrete bed stone and broken "urbanite" concrete chunk masonry.

I plan on harling or doing stucco over it, so the appearance of the underlying masonry isn't a concern to me. The stone or urbanite would chiefly be fill, to take up some volume so that less lime concrete is used, and save a bit of money.

Now I understand that lime concrete takes a *long* time to cure. But that pumice or similar pozzolans might speed the process. I want to embed insulation in the wall also.

If this isn't too much pie-in-the-sky thinking, does anyone have advice on how realistic something like this is?

The only ICF like product we'd use would be some sort of concrete decking product, to build a flat terrace roof that's strong enough to routinely walk on and also bear the weight of snow-falls. I recognize for a load bearing slab I'd have to use portland cement and rebar, and would build very thick masonry walls, 18-24 inches ground floor, and 12-14 inches second story, to bear its weight (along with poured internal columns.

Any advice is appreciated. Ranging from "Hey newbie, you're nuts," to advice on types of insulation, whether I should abandon the idea of lime and just do conventional cement based concrete, and so on.

Thanks !