Sometimes special hardware can really come in handy for speeding construction. That’s probably why there are hundreds of different anchors and straps available – they really do make buildings stronger and easier to build. The anchors pictured above are used to build hogans, an octagonal shaped structure favored by the Navajo and others living in … 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
Some people are using sharp rocks, thorny vines, etc. to prevent slippage between bags. These things may help a little, but barbed wire does a lot more than prevent slippage –– it adds tensile strength to your structure. This point is often overlooked. Tensile strength restrains courses of domes from moving horizontally (expanding outwards from … 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
Earthbag construction is a durable and affordable technique for building houses. The system was developed specifically with the goal of making them earthquake resistant, and they are in fact very effective at stopping most common bullet calibers. See all the best earthbag videos at EarthbagBuilding.com Videos