Earthbag House Tour – Beginning of Year 2
We put the earthbag house project on hold for the winter and a large portion of this summer. It’s now August and we are back to resume work. Here’s what it looks like after a nine month absence:
Earthbag House Project: Where We Left Off for the Winter
Many of my friends and readers who followed our earthbag house build last summer have asked, “So, how much did you get done before winter?” The short answer is “Lots, but not as much as we’d hoped.” In this post I’ll share our final projects up until we wrapped things up just before Thanksgiving of…
Earthbag Building Resources
In this post I would like to share a list of the resources we have used for building the earthbag house. I’ll update this page as we continue the project, so check back later or sign up for my newsletter at the end of the post to be notified when I add something new!
Papercrete
Papercrete? What’s that? Papercrete is a mixture of paper and Portland cement. It has a light, spongy, airy feel and it’s a great insulating material!
Doors and Windows in an Earthbag House
We install doors and windows a bit differently in an earthbag home than in a normal house. Watch the video below where Lee explains how it works, and enjoy the slideshow afterward which shows the doors and window frames in the earthbag house we are building:
Cistern Part II
A few weeks back I wrote a post about the rainwater cistern we’re building. We’ve made a lot of progress since then! My newest video shows the cistern from dream to (almost) done! This cistern, made of earthbags like the rest of the house, will be the primary source of water for the house. We’ll…
Ground Insulation
Protecting the House from Cold and Moisture One of the major things to consider when building a house is how to protect it from moisture and temperature extremes. Here’s a video I filmed (a couple of months back now) on how Keith protected the foundation of the earthbag house from the elements using natural and reused building…
Cistern
Cistern and Utility Room The most unusual and complex part of the earthbag house is the utility room, containing a 3,000 gallon rainwater cistern. This room is the center of operations from which the electricity, sewer and water supply will be controlled. It is also recessed into the ground with double-thick walls below ground level,…
Earthbag Mixture
Earthbag Mixture This being an earthbag house, one of the primary tasks involved in building it is making the mixture to put into the earthbags. We start out with the piles of clay that have been dug up around the building site. My father-in-law, Lee, made mud pits–like kiddie pools–with boards and plywood and tarps, and…
Gravel Walls
The Walls are Coming! I’m so excited to be past the trenching and foundation stage and working on the actual walls! We’ve hired some helpers to come out during the week, and on the weekends sometimes Denise and Jeff come out and may bring friends to help as well. Thanks to the additional hands, things are moving…
Foundations
Foundation, French Drain, and the First Bags! We’re making steady progress on the earthbag house! Here’s what we’ve been up to: On the afternoon of August 13th, after we had finished filling the last of the trenches, Keith rented a mini excavator to dig the foundation and the cistern/utility room, which will be set lower…
Natural Building Extravaganza!
On Saturday morning, July 26, I sluggishly opened my eyes in a cute AirBnB bedroom in North Carolina. It had been a short night–we arrived at 1 a.m. after 16 hours on the road, where I got to see some parts of the country (such as St. Louis) for the first time ever. The previous weekend…