As you may well know, the recent floods in Pakistan destroyed or damaged 2 million homes, affecting 20 million people. PAKSBAB, an NGO building strawbale houses in Pakistan, uses gravel-filled earthbag foundations to protect their houses from water damage. To date, 22 houses have been built. In addition to providing flood protection, PAKSBAB uses earthbag … Read more
Reader’s have asked for our YouTube videos on DVD. Even though they’re free on my YouTube channel, some people have slow Internet access and can’t watch them. Some may prefer to watch them on TV. So we’re now offering a limited number of DVDs that include all 61 videos (as of October 30, 2010) and … Read more
My Step-by-Step Earthbag Building article at EarthbagBuilding.com has been updated. I built a demonstration wall and photographed each step. YouTube videos have been embedded to further demonstrate the process. All the latest tools and techniques are shown, including use of stronger sheetmetal sliders, 2-gallon cement buckets, bucket chutes, bags turned inside out, and filling bags … Read more
The most recent issue of The Last Straw journal (#60) has my article about earthbag/stone foundations. The following information is just a short excerpt. You can buy the full length article from The Last Straw. The design outlined here can be used with load-bearing and non load-bearing straw bale walls, earthbag walls, cob, adobe, cordwood … Read more
If you’ve been reading our blogs and websites, you’ll often see reference to scoria. Scoria, also known as lava rock, has numerous properties which make it a great building material. The key breakthrough for earthbag building was Kelly Hart’s house made with bags of scoria. His house stays comfortable year round in a very cold … Read more
Larger structures such as schools and other commercial structures in earthquake zones require strong reinforcing. Patti Stouter and I have been working on a school design for Haiti. The first earthbag school is now under construction near Leogane. Part of the design is this reinforced earthbag buttress, which will help stabilize the long walls. Complete … Read more