Polypropylene Tubes for Pipeline Foundations and Beach Erosion Control

We continue to find amazing uses for polypropylene tubes and bags. In this case, PEMEX oil company in Mexico used large poly tubes (referred to as Geotextile Tubes or GT in the original article) at one of their oil facilities. One part of the project involved filling 7.8m circumference poly tubes to support oil pipelines, … Read more

Earthbag Greenhouse at Sandhill Farm

The year-round greenhouse at Sandhill Farm is built with sustainable materials, including earthbags for lower walls and light straw/clay in upper walls. Greenhouse segment starts at 1:12. Maybe someone from Sandhill Farm can chime in here and leave some comments. More info: Sandhill Farm Dancing Rabbit TV

Alternative Waterproof Membranes for Living Roofs

There’s growing interest in living roofs or green roofs. The difficulty is deciding on the waterproof membrane. Rubber pond liner (EPDM) is the most waterproof and durable material, and the most common choice due to proven performance, but it’s also very expensive and made from nasty petro chemicals. I think a number of less toxic, … Read more

Earthbag Benches: The Perfect Starter Project

It seems many readers are hesitant to plunge in and start building an earthbag house. That’s understandable. Building any home is a major undertaking and it makes sense to plan accordingly. The best advice for those just getting started (after doing the prerequisite background research) is to build something small like a storage shed or … Read more

Living Walls

I recently wrote an article about living walls for GreenHomeBuilding.com, and in doing the research for this I came upon an interesting approach to creating a kind of living wall or retaining wall using geotextile materials. Basically, loosely woven bags filled with a growing medium can be stacked to form walls that then support plant … Read more

Earthbag Privacy Walls

In addition to many other uses, earthbags also make great privacy walls. Besides being beautiful, privacy walls help block wind and noise, and keep out stray dogs and prying eyes. You can greatly enhance your home using this dirt cheap building technique. Protected from excess wind, plants can thrive even in harsh climates like New … Read more