Where are you going to build your sustainable home? For the best possible life you’ll want to find a community of people with the right attitude. In Crestone, Colorado, for example, there are straw bale, earthbag, adobe, earthship houses, etc. on almost every block. This tiny town has around 125 of these alternative buildings. The [...]
Archive for March, 2009
Finding the Right Community
Posted in Economics, Introduction, codes, tagged earthbag building, earthbag, earthbag houses, natural building, sustainable building, earthbag construction on March 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Tire Foundations?
Posted in Economics, Emergency Shelter, Filling Bags, Foundations, Introduction, tagged earthbag building, earthbag, earthbag houses, earthbag construction, earthbag foundation, tire foundation, tire houses on March 29, 2009 | 4 Comments »
What about using tires for foundations? In my opinion, earthbags are superior for foundations and walls. If you’re not convinced of this, tamp one tire (the way it’s supposed to be done, which takes 20 minutes or so). Then tamp the equivalent (in cubic inches) in earthbags and see for yourself which is easier. But [...]
Earthbag (Sandbag) Stands
Posted in Filling Bags, Introduction, tools, tagged bag stands, earthbag building, earthbag construction, earthbag stands, sandbag frames, sandbag stands, sandbags on March 28, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Bag stands can speed the bag filling process. Doni and Kaki provide details for building bag stands in their excellent book Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques. I like using a “bucket chute” — a plastic bucket with the bottom cut out. Here we present two commercially available bag stands for those who [...]
Earthbag House Plans
Posted in Building Styles, Economics, Introduction, tagged earthbag building, earthbag construction, earthbag homes, earthbag house plans, earthbag houses, earthbag plans, small house plans, sustainable house plans on March 25, 2009 | 7 Comments »
I invite you all to visit my new website Earthbag House Plans. At this point I have 77 earthbag plans in the preliminary design stage. Most are houses, but there are some cabins, shelters, sheds and shops. All are small and made with sustainable materials — earthbags, straw bales, earth floors, earth plaster, sustainably harvested [...]
Earthbag Planters
Posted in Building Styles, Introduction, climate, landscaping, tagged earthbag construction, earthbag planters, garden planters, grow bed planters on March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Several new earthbag planter projects have been added to our Projects webpage at EarthbagBuilding.com (our companion website). This seems like a popular option that has lots of potential.
An Earthbag Raised Bed Garden from www.thefarm.org, Ecovillage Training Center, Summertown, TN provides their recipe, building techniques and photos for building planters/raised garden beds.
Beth’s Earthbag Construction Project from [...]
Sandbag Machines
Posted in Economics, Filling Bags, Introduction, tools, tagged automated bag filling, earthbag filling, sandbag filling, sandbag filling machine, sandbag machine on March 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Sandbags can be filled with a minimum of tools (often just a shovel is used), but sometimes you need machines to speed the work. Maybe there’s an urgent need due to flooding, or maybe you’re building a large number of sandbag (earthbag) houses. Here’s a sampling of some of the sandbag filling machines currently available.
C-MAC [...]
Green Group building ‘earthbag’ house
Posted in Building Styles, Domes, Economics, Emergency Shelter, Foundations, climate on March 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The following is an article written by Jeanne Chaussee in the March 21, 2009 issue of the ‘Guadalajara Reporter’, is about a project in Mexico that I am involved with.
CHAPALA – Members of the Chapala Green Group have started a project teaching young people at the Niños y Jovenes Children’s Shelter in San Juan Cosala [...]
Earthbag Walls in One Day?
Posted in Arches, Building Styles, Economics, Filling Bags, Insulation, Introduction, climate, tagged earthbag building, earthbag homes, rice hull insulation, rice hulls on March 20, 2009 | 4 Comments »
How would you build earthbag walls up to 12 feet above ground on pier footings? A reader asked me this recently. Hmm. Moving tons of earth up that high would be difficult, and that got me thinking of alternatives. One solution I came up with uses an insulation blowing machine and hand-held bag sewing machine [...]
Eco-Dome Emergency Shelter Project
Posted in Building Styles, Domes, Emergency Shelter on March 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Recent Brandon University Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies graduate, Jennifer Brinkworth, has built an “Eco-Dome” as part of her practicum project at the Riverbank [...]
How Much do Earthbag Houses Cost?
Posted in Economics, Introduction, tagged cost of earthbag houses, earthbag homes, earthbag housing costs, housing cost on March 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
This is probably the most common question of all: How much do earthbag houses cost? It’s sort of like asking how much does a car cost? Well, it depends on the size, features, construction details and how much work you are willing to do. The short answer is it can cost as much or as [...]
