Ever wonder how to build a simple home for very little money, without going into debt? The key is to use low-cost, locally available natural materials such earth, small diameter wood and straw to keep expenses to a minimum. The real fun is incorporating all of these methods into an optimum, comfortable, affordable home. Our … Read more
I have been consulting with Mike Parker who started www.childrenofthedump.org in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico about how to build inexpensive, ecological housing for poor families who subsist off recycling materials from the city dump. They typically live in shacks and shanties that are often not adequate for their needs, nor do they provide proper housing for … Read more
Note: This is probably the closest we’ve come to going viral with our message about earthbag building. Skim to the bottom of this blog post and look at all the sites that are posting this story. And that’s just a few. The surge of interest came from my recent articles at Instructables.com, which combined have … Read more
We believe the combination of new developments in earthbag building is a game-changer, a breakthrough that is gradually pushing earthbag into the mainstream. Long term readers have been following these developments, but I will briefly recap some key developments for new readers since there’s a recent surge in traffic. – Engineered plans are now available … Read more
What is the lifespan of poly bags, and will they make durable foundations? From our experience and from what we can gather from other sources, poly bags can last almost indefinitely if kept out of sunlight, and therefore double-bagged foundations appear to be extremely durable. This is important because earthbag foundations are much lower cost … Read more
Due to the enormous popularity of my first earthbag instructable, I’ve added a new one about building roundhouses. This is the most comprehensive earthbag roundhouse information published anywhere on the Internet, with step-by-step directions and lots of photos. “We built this earthbag roundhouse in 2010 as part of an earthbag workshop in Thailand, and finished … Read more