I posted an idea for Insulated Earthbag Foundations for Yurts at Instructables.com. One reader who left a comment liked the idea, but needed a simpler design so he wouldn’t have to get a building permit. Here’s an idea for a very simple design that might get around building codes. Stack one course of earthbags in … Read more
Test description: Shear strength of plastered 4′ x 4’/ 1.2 x 1.2 m bag wall (15″ / 38 cm thick) of weak cohesive soil with barbed wire; Materials: solid poly bags, tamped subsoils of silt and clay, lime and earthen plaster Abstract: Earthbag is a growing sustainable building technique that is increasingly desired in the … Read more
For several years, Kelly and I have been filtering all the best earthbag content from the Web, writing extensively on all aspects of earthbag building and organizing the information for readers. There’s now an enormous amount of information available – so much that it’s difficult to keep up with everything. That’s one reason why our … Read more
“The quick summary: – Housing in the developing world is often dangerous (especially in earthquakes), climatically inappropriate, toxic, wasteful of energy and water, bad for the people who live in it, the people who build it and for the planet at large. This is not about poverty — rich, poor and middle class alike all … Read more
Zafra, one of our readers, left a comment today that said, “I would argue that government itself is not the problem, but corporate control of government is. As a rule, if you see government interfering in progressive movements it’s to protect the corporations and industries (banks, insurance, timber, chemical just to name a few that … Read more
“An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power grid, gas grid, municipal water systems, sewage treatment systems, storm drains, communication services, and in some cases, public roads. Advocates of autonomous building describe advantages that include reduced environmental impacts, increased security, and lower costs … Read more