While we don't think of ourselves as poor, we still have very little cash and many projects. We have found that you can do projects with little money and lots of labor, or you can do them with little labor and lots of money. We usually have more time than we do money, so we are constantly looking for ways to complete projects and save. The idea of using chicken wire and cement construction is not at all new. In the old type of construction, only one layer of chicken wire was used and this was just to hold the cement to the side of the wall.
Cement is the strongest when it is less than one-forth of an inch away from steel reinforcing.
In ferro-cement, the overlapped chicken wire is the reinforcing, and all of this wire is what gives it its great strength and ability to withstand stress. By having several layers of chicken wire, with the cement being forced to fill in all the spaces, a very strong cement structure is the result. There are many ferro-cement boats, still in service that are over 50 years old. Think of the stresses these boats have to endure while on the high seas. Hopefully your house or barn will never be subjected to this kind of stress.