As you may well know, the recent floods in Pakistan destroyed or damaged 2 million homes, affecting 20 million people. PAKSBAB, an NGO building strawbale houses in Pakistan, uses gravel-filled earthbag foundations to protect their houses from water damage. To date, 22 houses have been built.
In addition to providing flood protection, PAKSBAB uses earthbag foundations because they are earthquake resistant. A shake table test at the University of Nevada, Reno, simulated the devastating Northridge (Canoga Park) quake that occurred in California. According to their report, “the house survived 0.82g, twice the acceleration of the Canoga Park record. Although severely damaged, the building did not appear in danger of collapse, even at the end of the test sequence.”
Due to their excellent track record of getting things done and their top quality design, I rate PAKSBAB as one of the best housing NGOs.
This is great news! We’re left to wonder, How would a full sized EB Home perform? One day, we shall see some great testing done, and verify our hands on experience!
Yeah, this is some of the best news ever. Hard to beat an actual shake table test at a U.S. government approved lab.
It’s hard to predict how an entire earthbag structure will hold up due to lack of testing, and because there are many ways to build with bags and many ways to reinforce them.