“Building an earthbag home is possible to do even if you have no construction knowledge. The two women who built the earthbag home I toured built it basically all by themselves in about nine months and consulted an earthbag home book to guide them. They had people help here and there, but for the most part the two of them built their home, which amazes and inspires me.
This is what the pantry looks like today. I have finished all of the bag work and am now building the framework for the roof. The large turquoise pipe in the foreground is the inlet air vent that goes all the way down to the bottom of the hole with an elbow through the bag wall. In the distance, next to the motor home, is a 1500 gallon water tank that I got a great deal on. That tank will be dropped into the pantry hole for storage of rain water off the roof of the garage. The vertical walls that will meet the roof of the pantry will be cordwood construction, providing good insulation to keep the panty temperate; the roof will be well insulated as well.
After finishing the chicken coop described in yesterday’s post it was time to start work on the pantry/root cellar portion of the complex. I hired an excavator to dig out part of the hole and give me a head start on the project. While he was here with the machinery he also leveled an area for the rest of the building, dug an extension of the water line so we would have water next to the chicken coop, and brought in road base for inside the barn.
Permaculture is an ecological way of thinking and designing human interactions for resilient, sustainable living.
“Earthbag construction is a type of rammed earth construction where durable bags, usually polypropylene or burlap, are filled with local earth or other materials, laid in courses and tamped down into place to form walls. The greatest advantage is that it is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to construct a green home which with some hard work can be done by the homeowner.
“Sand bag building I built in Peru.”