Several new earthbag planter projects have been added to our Projects webpage at EarthbagBuilding.com (our companion website). This seems like a popular option that has lots of potential. An Earthbag Raised Bed Garden from www.thefarm.org, Ecovillage Training Center, Summertown, TN provides their recipe, building techniques and photos for building planters/raised garden beds. Beth’s Earthbag Construction … Read more
Sandbags can be filled with a minimum of tools (often just a shovel is used), but sometimes you need machines to speed the work. Maybe there’s an urgent need due to flooding, or maybe you’re building a large number of sandbag (earthbag) houses. Here’s a sampling of some of the sandbag filling machines currently available. … Read more
How would you build earthbag walls up to 12 feet above ground on pier footings? A reader asked me this recently. Hmm. Moving tons of earth up that high would be difficult, and that got me thinking of alternatives. One solution I came up with uses an insulation blowing machine and hand-held bag sewing machine … Read more
This is probably the most common question of all: How much do earthbag houses cost? It’s sort of like asking how much does a car cost? Well, it depends on the size, features, construction details and how much work you are willing to do. The short answer is it can cost as much or as … Read more
Superior Sandbag System, an erosion control firm in Orange County, CA, have a new tube filling machine that fills continuous polypropylene tubing. So far it’s been used for erosion control, but it could be utilized to mass produce affordable housing. Steve Villa and Steve Williams, the owners of Superior Sandbag Systems, invented the process and … Read more
Ferrocement is an excellent, well tested building system used throughout the world. This post explores two earthbag structures on our Projects pages that have ferrocement roofs. For small projects, simple curved shapes of ferrocement make a good roof. See EarthDome House. In this project they used rebar and mesh for the roof and recycled polystyrene … Read more