Here’s Patti Stouter’s entry for the $300 House design competition. Rubble bags on lower walls provide a solid, flood resistant wall. Hyper-wattle provides lightweight insulating upper walls made of mesh tubes. Thin walls conserve space and materials, and take less labor. Her design is one of only a few in this competition that could actually be built for $300 or less.
Patti’s project is getting rave reviews. Over all, the jurors have posted very few comments, but RSmith posted this comment: “Genius! I love this concept. You are maximizing the most available resources: Human labor, earth and trash! This is one of the best design I have seen so far! …”
This could very well be a winning design. Please vote as soon as possible. There are only a few days left.
Update: Voting is getting vicious. There appears to have been a coordinated attack against all three of my designs in the last hour. All three designs suddenly plummeted in unison by about 20 points each. I’ve been cautioning people about some of the drawbacks to other designs and this has likely triggered some hard feelings. If you haven’t voted, please help support our designs.
RUBBLE BAGS:
HEAVY BASE WALLS
13” THICK BAGS FILLED WITH RUBBLE OR GRAVEL AND/ OR SAND (OR OTHER MASONRY)
A WATER-RESISTANT FOUNDATION WALL
Low height allows thinner width
Barbed wire between courses for tensile strength
Less expensive than metal gabions
Doubled poly bags for 3”- 4” coarse rubble
Finish with cement stucco
LIGHT UPPER WALLS
8” THICK MESH TUBES FILLED WITH STRAW OR CHIPS, DIPPED IN CLAY SLIP
NATURAL FIBERS RAISED ABOVE WATER AND INSECTS AND COATED IN PROTECTIVE CLAY; R-12 TO R-16
LIGHT CLAY IN PLASTIC MESH TUBES
NATURAL, SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS
ADAPTABLE TO DIFFERENT SHAPES
STRESS-SKIN TECHNOLOGY
LOW-TECH AND SIMPLE
USING LOCAL LABOR
FINISH WITH LIME & EARTHEN PLASTERS
Where can I get plans of this house to build my own?
Regards
I sent Patti your message.
I applaud you for posting somebody else’s design and asking for people to vote for it. Most people would bash competitors.
I don’t think like that. I want the best ideas to rise to the top. This includes other earthbag designs, CEB houses, pallet house, reycycled plastic block house.
I like the hyper wattle idea for a light weight infill system with reasonable insulating properties. This is the first I’ve heard of it – has it been tested in applications?
Thanks,
Doug
Patti is building a shed to test it out. So far so good. We’ll cover hyper-wattle in more depth soon.
Thanks Owen, you really encouraged me to develop this.
And thanks to generous samples of mesh tubing from these suppliers, especially the first three:
Bag Supplies Canada of Stratford Ontario has a raschel mesh tube that looks good for hyperadobe. They may supply raschel mesh for wattle also.
Master Net Ltd of Mississauga Ontario has 6″, 8″, and 9″ uv resistant mesh for wattles that is very strong but only costs 5- 9 cents per linear foot. Rolls are 3- 4000 lf.
Syfilco of Exeter, Ontario has similar, but I’m not sure if they’re selling retail, and the price may be higher.
Quality Packaging Systems of Yorba Linda has a slightly larger vexar mesh (not as strong but ok for wattle) that is less than 3 cents per foot but only comes in 16,000 lf rolls.
Bluefire/ Mesh Bag Direct of Orlando, FL has 10″ dia (16″ layflat) crocheted mesh and Volm of Antigo, WI has 12″ dia (19″ layflat) that may work for larger wattles.