From the archives — I realized yesterday that this open source disaster resistant earthbag house could be easily adapted to Nepal.
Add a roof of recycled wood and metal roofing and for very little money (under $1,000) you’d have a safe, decent home in short order. This design is 25 sq.m (270 sq.ft or about 16’x16’ interior) It’s extremely simple and easily to build.
The small symmetrical plan, rounded corners, single story, lightweight roof, and earthbag benches all help make this house earthquake resistant. The porches (which could be added later) provide a lot of outdoor workspace that could be left open or enclosed to create future living space. In other words, this design provides a safe, low cost, disaster resistant core that’s culturally appropriate and can be easily expanded later on.
For maximum strength, please refer to our earthquake resistant earthbag building guidelines for Nepal.
I want to learn about earth bag homes.
I suggest that you study http://www.earthbagbuilding.com
Hi all,
I’m starting an NPO to teach earth bag house building in South Africa. Please can we start a conversation/correspondence?
We are building an e-bag roundhouse with a self supporting gable roof in the Upper Peninsula, we will not have time to plaster the outside or inside walls, Is it possible to cover with tarps until spring?
Yes, if you secure them carefully. Wind can really whip tarps to shreds quickly, so use high quality tarps and tie them on securely.
I’ve heard of a proposed government shelter aid kit that will provide metal roofing, nails, hammer, tape measure and a few other basic tools. The idea is to let people use their choice of walls and the government provides a few tools and materials to help finish the roof. This is all preliminary. We’ll see what eventually transpires. But the basic idea sounds pretty good.
Owen
Its true. The government has decided to provide metal sheets, nails,… etc. Apart from these things,even 1000 US $ is not easy for almost all families in the remote villages apart from the Kathmandu valley. Does it work even during the monsoon ? The monsoon will arrive soon,around half of june and will continue till september.It would be better if one can construct shelters without things like metal rod,cement,….
One option is to build $100-$200 shelters like this: https://naturalbuildingblog.siterubix.com/earthbag-pump-house-finished/
These shelters can be built end to end or side to side as shown in our UN shelter proposal.
http://www.earthbagbuilding.com/pdf/UN%20earthbag%20shelters.pdf
You could add salvaged boards for roof rafters and cover with tarps until you can build a better roof. Paint the bags to block UV rays and do the plaster later. Or do earth plaster and redo every year. A crude door could be built with scraps to further reduce costs.