This is a follow-up blog post to my previous post entitled Fastest Corner Pinning Method? I’ll keep it brief. I just wanted to provide a close-up photo of the final pinned corner. (Click to enlarge.) You can see how simple this method is. Just poke sharp galvanized wire (about 16 gauge) through the folded corner … Read more
You can adjust the moisture in your soil mix. In this case we’re using road base. You can see that this is too wet. If it looks glistening with water then it’s obviously too wet. If you squeeze it and see water coming out like this then it’s too wet. So you can take your … Read more
All of our earthbag projects have been built using the same road base material. It has worked exceedingly well. After tamping, the earthbags are solid and turn into very hard earthen blocks. Here I am testing the hardness of bags on our roundhouse. But from time to time I would see areas with less than … Read more
I’ve been reading about TerraZyme® for a number of years, but Scott Howard of Earthen Hand prompted me to comment on this soil stabilizer. It seems to be an enzyme fermented from fruit, so here’s another safe, low tech way to stabilize earthbags. Text below is from their website. TerraZyme® soil stabilizer is a safe, … Read more
Scott Howard of Earthen Hand tipped me off to this soil stabilizing product that could be useful for some projects. Text below is from the PolyPavement website. PolyPavement solidifies earth to make Natural Soil Pavement. It is a liquid soil solidifier that converts the earth itself into a solid pavement. PolyPavement converts the earth itself … Read more
I want to talk a little bit more about these mesh bags that are used in the hyperadobe system. It’s the hot new development. Let’s take a close look. The open weave allows the soil to dry much faster. They’re lower cost. They’re almost as strong (as poly bags). They’re less expensive. You don’t necessarily … Read more