There are dozens of building methods and design techniques that enable virtually anyone to build their dream home at rock-bottom prices. The solution lies in natural building – using locally available, low-impact materials such as earth, stone, straw and small diameter wood, in conjunction with timeless vernacular building methods. Our grandparents didn’t need a quarter … Read more
My earlier post about Earthbag Building in Cold Climates on January 17, 2009 piqued some interest. Since energy performance on most buildings can be improved with insulation, including those made of earth — adobe, earthbag, etc. — I decided to pursue this idea further. So here’s another method for insulating earthbag buildings using tube sandbags, … Read more
Owen Geiger built an earthbag dome with a green roof for Mother Earth News magazine that is scheduled for the August/September 2009 issue. It is a multi-purpose storm/rootcellar and storage shed. www.motherearthnews.com A picture of the dome was submitted in a green roof competition at Huffington Post. It is moving up the charts and is … Read more
There needs to be much more focus on sustainable housing solutions that benefit average people. According to the UN, approximately 1.2 billion people lack adequate shelter. The main problem is lack of affordable housing. Natural building can play a major role in addressing the current unprecedented housing crisis. Everyone can have safe, decent, debt-free housing … Read more
We have added a new feature to www.earthbagbuilding.com: videos! Once we realized how many really informative and entertaining short video programs can be viewed through YouTube.com, we did a thorough scouring of related titles to select only the best for our website. While there are some videos that are merely promotional in nature, or are … Read more
Earthbag building (also called sandbag building) is surely one of the lowest cost, most practical building methods. First used by the military for building durable, bullet and blast resistant structures, this building method has recently experienced a surge of interest among do-it-yourself builders. There are now an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 earthbag structures, including homes, … Read more