Patti Stouter has been experimenting with all sorts of things, including using mesh bags of recycled foam. She wants to build a Nubian vault with these bags of foam on a rebar frame. Scrap materials are often large enough to fit well in cheaper open weave vexar mesh tubes. This stretchy plastic tubing is used    Read More →

Today we’re experimenting with rice hull ash and road base. We’re using a small measuring device so we can get about 10% rice hull ash. This is what rice hull ash looks like. It’s hulls from rice that’s been burned. It looks like ash from a forest fire. It’s a natural pozzolan which can make    Read More →

This just in from Kelly Hart: “Dr.Jenny Pickerill recently traveled around the world on a Winston Churchill Trust Travelling Fellowship on a quest for information and insights on how folks in England (where she teaches at the University of Leicester) might better address needs for sustainable housing. One of her stops was in the rural    Read More →

Some natural builders may be interested in building houses for profit. One suggestion is to find out what people want in your area. And so we’re going to look at a few houses here. This is what people are buying. These houses are made with brick, concrete and tile, but you could build the same    Read More →

Many gardeners are familiar with Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening system: raised garden beds of any size divided into square foot (300mm) grids. It’s a very popular gardening system and he has sold over one million books. With this method you can grow five times more plants in a given space with less maintenance. You’ll    Read More →

Scott Howard of Earthen Hand Natural Building does it again! This earthbag cabin in Portland, Oregon was “built mostly during a workshop series in summer 2009. We had a lot of fun with building this house.” Click the link to see more pics. I think roundhouses are the simplest earthbag structures to build, and I    Read More →