Earthen Building. What's that?

I thought it might be helpful to explain what I've been doing since this past March. Its been fun reading a ton of books on building. I've talked to a number of people about what earthen walls and earthen building techniques are, and whether or not I wanted to use these methods and materials. If this isn’t enough, I’m still riding, climbing, hanging out with great friends and trying to keep up with my triathlon training (except the dreaded running portion). Did I mention that I just started taking some Masters level courses in organizational behavior and organizational development?

BACKGROUND
When I bought the property back in 2000/2001, I drew up plans for a place to comfortably retire. A ranch style house with an open floor plan and a loft has always been appealing. It seemed that a house around 1100 to 1500 sq. ft was all that I needed, but that size didn't include my double door garage for a car or two, and enough room to store other things. In addition, there's a studio built off to one side for stained glass and wood working projects. What are we up to now? I’d say that probably brings it to 2000+ sq. ft.

KEEP IT SIMPLE- BUY A YURT
It took me 8 years to finally figure out that I didn’t need to build the "big house" first. Building the studio would be perfect to entertain friends, have a great view and a warm/dry place to hang out near some world class crack climbing. Also, not having a mortgage for a part time residence sounded like the best part of it all.
Initially, I came up with a brilliant idea of building a nice deck to support a heavy-duty (insulated) yurt. I drew up designs and submitted the proposal to my "architectural control committee". It was shot it down almost immediately - saying it wouldn't be harmonious with the other homes in the neighborhood. Understandable, but a bummer.
YURT RESOURCE: http://www.coloradoyurt.com/photos/photos_yurts/index.php If you're interested in seeing a yurt, look at some of the interior pictures on this link. These can be pretty beautiful inside. I was actually looking at purchasing a yurt from a company in Alaska. The product seemed superior to other vendors when it came to withstanding the cold, snowy and blowy Wyoming winters. The Colorado Yurt Company was my second choice.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
This rejection got me thinking about what my next steps should be. I now had to look into more traditional methods of building to match the harmonious nature of my neighborhood! I’d venture to say that most people that know me know that I'm not very traditional. I’d also imagine that friends and family recognize that I’m a bit stubborn, competitive, and good at finding my own way of doing things (I do stay within the lines when I have to though).
I did consider a wood or metal framed house (short-lived consideration) but was also trying to keep the costs down. I starting pulling up a bunch of websites on different building techniques and kept reading up on different passive solar designs (which I had planned to incorporate anyway). This led me to thinking more about passive solar walls and heating, which then took me into the direction of adobe and earthen walls. I’ve always loved the Sante Fe and Spanish style homes. After a ton more research on the best method, I settled on Rammed Earth Walls.

Goto these sites for examples: www.rammedearthhomes.com or www.rammedearthworks.com

One Passive Solar Resource: http://www.nrel.gov/learning/ho_passive_solar_day.html

SIDE NOTE

As you’ll see, this journal is as much of a living document as is my house design (and likely my lifestyle). Did I mention that I’m extraverted?

In June, I planned to take a Rammed Earth Workshop in California wine country. The idea of renting a bike and traveling around from vineyard to vineyard is what sold me even more on the workshop. Some friends planned to join me before/after the workshop so that we could take long day rides, followed up by sitting in a lovely veranda, sucking down wonderfully fermented and liqufied grapes from a bottle.

http://www.rammedearthworks.com/

My plans changed when I learned about an August Earthen Building workshop near Fairplay, Colorado (discussed in a previous post). This workshop helped shape my latest changes to the house design, by including earthbag and adobe walls into the mix with the rammed earth walls. The natural finishes and sealants for the walls weren’t something that I had put much thought into until this workshop. Having a few different types of earthen building techniques seemed to be the better way to go so that I could play with different techniques and speed up the building process.

http://www.punpunthailand.org/natural-building.html#Earthbag

This post is getting long. Look for future posts as I start to discuss how it all came together, along with some explanation of the differences in the materials and techniques.

-s

Thai connection

Have you ever gone to a workshop/seminar and been so jazzed by everything that you learned - And you just want to start applying what you learned to everything applicapble? That happened to me for the first time just a week ago. I find that work conferences and workshops are good "for the moment", but only if you have a good presenter. This one was not work-related, and involved building walls with natural building materials and self-sustaining concepts. In addition, we had an amazing opportunity to learn about seed propagation, organic farming, sustainability, cooking Thai meals, and even had a chance to give and receive a Thai massage to some of the others in the workshop. The best part of the weekend was meeting all the amazing people that participated, and learning how and why they attended this workshop. It’s always fascinating to find the links and connections that you have with other people, and that you can usually find something in common with almost anyone.

I spent August 1-4 up near Fairplay, CO at a natural building workshop. Approximately 15-20 people came together to put up interior earthen walls in an Earth-ship. We had folks from Thailand, Nepal, Scotland, Paris and then Texas, California and Colorado in attendance. Did I remember everywhere?

Here’s what we covered:

Day 1: We learned about the appropriate composition of the mud mixture when making adobe bricks, cob, and mortar. The most satisfying way to determine the right composition is by mixing the mud up with your feet and feeling the texture. It gives a purposeful meaning to a mud bath! We made about 100 adobe bricks in a very short period of time. It takes less than a week for the bricks to fully dry (Colorado High Desert Plains at 9600’ elevation).

Day 2: The home owners went over the vision of the entire house plan but explained in more detail what we would start to work on for the next few days. We put up adobe walls for a pantry, mud room and the wall that separates the garage from the house. We also put placers in the walls that would eventually hold shelves; placed coat hooks out of sticks on the walls; and left room in the wall for window placements.
In addition, we learned how to build an adobe brick arch above a door, built a bench out of earth bags with a stone/flagstone top, and helped the designers place a window in the adobe wall we built.

Day 3: Day 3 involved plastering the walls with an earthen cob-like mixture. You can create walls with texture or you can smooth out the walls with trowels and other flat surfaces. Peggy also showed us how to maintain the look of adobe bricks walls with a thin sifted mud plaster. The group found different projects/walls to work on and we were all amazed in how much we accomplished. I worked on a wall with rounded corners. Rebecca spent a lot of time and detail on the stained glass window placement and the walls that surrounded it. It looked amazing!

Day 4: I had no idea that we could make our own earthen paint that's breathable and waterproof. The group broke up into three stations where we learned how to make earthen paints; a lime finish for an interior wall; and lastly, we waterproofed an earthen roof with a beeswax and linseed oil mix.

The most important lessons learned was that it takes a village to build a community. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and if you do something that you decide to change later with earthen building materials, you can modify it to make it work later. One of our presenters said that if it seems hard, look for a simpler way to do it. Thanks to Peggy, Jo, Nate, Kip, Kristen and Kam for organizing this and allowing us to come together in your home and lives. For more information on the presenters and the workshop, goto http://www.punpunthailand.com/.

Windy Wyoming Surprises

Friday, July 18th 2008: As we drove up (it was dark out) to camp out on my property, I sensed something was different and assumed it was due to the new pipeline that has disturbed a number of the properties around the area. We noticed a few downed trees near our camp and my friend asked how long ago this happened. I (again) assumed it was from a windy winter this last year. The next morning, I took a walk around the property and found at least 10 more large trees turned over. I then noticed that my neighbors to the west were rebuilding their home and the north neighbors lost their roof. This was no windy winter but the May 2008 Tornado. There used to be two large trees behind the rounded boulder on the summit of my property. These were both ripped out of the earth and were lying on their sides. HOLY TUMBLING COWS!!! The tornados were a fluke of nature, with a number mysteriously traveling gusts ranging from Windsor, CO to Laramie, WY. Who would have thought that a tornado would touch down at 8300’, let alone in the middle of a city?

I went over to meet and talk with the neighbors about the storm and their progress in rebuilding. G&D are very nice and gave me a number of contacts and resources to think about for my project. They even called the contractor that's helping them rebuild their home to discuss my contracting needs . I've been having a difficult time getting a contractor to bid out the project. They've shown interest in what I'm doing but haven't followed through with a quote. Since then, I've come to realize that they've been busy with building and rebuilding projects all around the area.

While I was up there, I dug up some soil to evaluate the composition and start to prepare for my supplemental soil needs in making a Rammed Earth home. The best rammed earth walls are composed of 70% sand/gravel, and 30% clay/silt/portland cement (~7% of portland cement).

During my stay, Wyoming revealed its mid-day torrential terror and drenched me before I could find shelter...... Luckily things dry out quickly... my soaked tent and fly dried within a half hour of the downpour!

Starting from Scratch

In 2000, I bought property in Wyoming and intend to someday retire there. I designed the house (on paper) and then sat around waiting until I could actually afford to build it. It's now 2008 and I finally came to the realization that I could "wait" for a long time and never benefit from enjoying the landscape, views and easy accessibility to climbing. I've scaled down my project to a workshop for stained glass. It started out as a 20' X 15' studio with just a sink. Now, it's around 29' X 15' (includes an entrance vestibule), has a partial round wall, a toilet, standing shower and sink. This studio will be my prototype and way to work out the bugs in building a bigger house.

I've researched building materials and have decided on Rammed Earth. www.rammedearthhomes and www.rammedearthworks.com are great starting points and resources to better understand what this means.
This journal is my attempt to keep family and friends connected to what I've been up to. Enjoy