Test description: Shear strength of plastered 4′ x 4’/ 1.2 x 1.2 m bag wall (15″ / 38 cm thick) of weak cohesive soil with barbed wire; Materials: solid poly bags, tamped subsoils of silt and clay, lime and earthen plaster Abstract: Earthbag is a growing sustainable building technique that is increasingly desired in the … Read more
For several years, Kelly and I have been filtering all the best earthbag content from the Web, writing extensively on all aspects of earthbag building and organizing the information for readers. There’s now an enormous amount of information available – so much that it’s difficult to keep up with everything. That’s one reason why our … Read more
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video is worth… Maybe that’s why my NaturalHouse YouTube channel is so popular. 2. Finished Earthbag Roundhouse 3. Cement Plastering 4. Building an Earthbag Dome 5. Hardness Test 6. Enviro Dome Fly-through 7. $300 Earthbag House 8. How to Make Square Corners 9. Bag Size 10. … Read more
Every year we publish the most popular blog posts for the last 12 months. We’ll do that again in November on our 4th anniversary. Our goal here is to look at the most popular blog posts since we’ve started – the Best of the Bestest. Think of them as hidden gems unless you’ve read all … Read more
Yesterday’s post was about the earthquake resistance of earthbags. Today’s post illustrates what an earthquake resistant gravel bag foundation looks like and explains why this design is so effective. Gravel is an ideal material for this application because it’s durable, reasonably inexpensive, readily available in most areas, has high bearing strength and prevents wicking of … Read more
Our ever alert researcher into all things earthen, Patti Stouter, has found that testing has confirmed that earthbags can provide excellent base isolation to lessen the impact of earthquakes and severe winds on buildings. The Advanced Materials Research group has published a paper titled Cyclic Simple Shear Tests on Base Isolation Using Soilbags. “Soilbags have … Read more