No heating or air conditioning, and yet Cody’s house stays around 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Cody’s website and book explain how he built his ferrocement house. You could build a house like this with earthbags on the sides and ferrocement on the roof. “It’s winter in the high desert as I write this, and last night … Read more
I submitted my final house design proposal for the Shelters for All housing competition. As posted previously, I chose a bamboo and plastic bottle wall design that best meets the design criteria. Entry requirements called for a one page summary of the project, detailed time and cost estimates, and up to five pages of drawings. … Read more
This is how to make a banker cry. It’s their worst nightmare. It’s also how to change the world, one step at a time. Read my comments below after this brief intro. “Austin Hay is still in high school, but he’s building his own house. It’s only 130 square feet, but it makes him a … Read more
Yesterday’s blog post on Production Earthbag Building using Rice Hulls introduced one method for building walls with rice hulls. As you can see from the drawing above, the construction process is very straightforward. This method uses a standard post and beam frame with posts set in concrete footers and beams attached to the posts with … Read more
Mike, in Texas, has been asking some interesting questions about wrapping a post and beam frame with tubes of rice hulls. He thinks this is probably the fastest way to build an earthbag house. He may very well be right. Conversations and blog posts like this one are my favorite. Here’s part of my email … Read more
So, you’ve bought a piece of land in a remote, rural area with few or no building codes and more jackrabbits than people. Where do you live while you’re building your sustainable home? Pay rent? Nah, that’s so twentieth century. You want free accommodation so you can put your money toward your new home, and … Read more