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
This is a follow-up blog post to my previous post entitled Fastest Corner Pinning Method? I’ll keep it brief. I just wanted to provide a close-up photo of the final pinned corner. (Click to enlarge.) You can see how simple this method is. Just poke sharp galvanized wire (about 16 gauge) through the folded corner … 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
Here’s a great, low cost way to build floors with compressed earth blocks. This Instructable is by Velacreations. Visit their website for more great ideas. When considering what material to use for a floor, few people look beyond a concrete slab, with something like tile or carpet as a finish. For us, however, there were … 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