Rebuilding Nepal, One Earthbag at a Time

rebuildingnepalRebuilding Nepal, One Earthbag at a Time is a short Kindle book assembled by a team of eight volunteers who went to Palchok in the Trishuli Valley to rebuild a school in the fall of 2015. Because of the remote location they needed to plan for every aspect of the project, and this book is primarily advice for others who might try to do something similar. Besides actually building the school, they wanted to introduce the earthbag technique to the villagers so they could continue rebuilding this way. The team had raised enough funds from friends and family to accomplish this goal. They were there for only two weeks, but they got that small school built! Graeme Howell was the mastermind behind this endeavor.

The first chapter introduces what they consider to be the essential building process and suggests how to make this happen efficiently. Because of the number of volunteers, including folks from the village, they wanted to keep everybody busy and make sure there weren’t bottlenecks in the process. For this reason they had people filling and sewing bags right away, even before the foundation trench was prepared. Likewise, they had people screening soil for the eventual plaster.

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Cowboy Builders in Nepal

This concrete vault in Nepal collapsed due to mistakes by incompetent builders.
This concrete vault in Nepal collapsed due to mistakes by incompetent builders.

The importance of using trained engineers, architects and supervisors can’t be emphasized enough. Due to a lack of trained builders, a few dangerous earthbag projects have been built in Nepal by what I call ‘cowboy builders’ – those with little or no training or building experience. We heard of a school in Mazel in Ghorka that was described as “the worst earthbag building in Nepal”. It has bamboo pins eaten by insects instead of steel rebar, two large 8’x8’ windows set 3’ apart, and dry soil fill consisting of 100% silt which has no binding strength. Proper earthbags are made with moist subsoil containing clay and aggregates, and then tamped solid to create ‘rammed earth in bags’.

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Silver Fire Wood Stoves

SilverFire® Mini Mongolian Dragon is an affordable rocket style stove that you can cook on.
SilverFire® Mini Mongolian Dragon is an affordable rocket style stove that you can cook on.

“The SilverFire® Mini Mongolian Dragon is a natural draft single burner chimney stove. This stove is heavy, with a refractory ceramic combustion chamber, to provide mass for radiant heat in addition to cooking in a small footprint. Cost: $380”

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Gabion Band Stone Construction

Rebuilding rural stone houses in earthquake zones with gabion bands
Rebuilding rural stone houses in earthquake zones with gabion bands

Special thanks to Randolph Langenbach who sent me this information on rebuilding rural stone houses in earthquake zones with gabion bands. The basic concept uses ring beams of stones wrapped in strong mesh to tie the masonry walls together.

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