Filling the Earthbags

Just to clarify, the walls of the earthbag house have been completed! However, I thought you might enjoy some video footage of the process of building the walls. In this video clip, Keith is working by himself to fill the earthbags in place on the wall.

When the walls were low, the workers often filled the bags on the ground and lifted them into place. However, since the bags can weigh around 100 pounds when they are full, it is much easier—and takes much less physical energy—to fill the bags in place on the wall, emptying the earthbag mixture into them one can at a time and pounding it after every few cans.

After laying a row of bags on the wall, you have to go over them with tampers. Keith used two smaller tampers to spread out the mixture inside the bags, then a larger flat-bottomed tamper to make the bags flat and ready for the next layer.

Here’s the video where Keith demonstrates and explains the whole process:

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