Here’s a drawing of my favorite earthbag slider that makes it easy to place bags on the wall without getting hooked on the barbed wire. If you want to make one, start out by cutting a sheet of 1/16th thick steel about 13 inches wide by 16” long. Tack weld a piece of 1” by … Read more
Square corners and tunnel-like window and door openings just don’t look right to me on natural homes. Gently curved openings and corners are much more elegant. Rounded openings have numerous advantages. Around windows, they allow more light into the home and improve the view. And they add a little extra space around doors, making it … Read more
I just met Disa and Rey at my latest earthbag workshop. I was really impressed with their dojo design and wanted others to see it. The Dojo and Wellness Center design is an adaptation of Cal-Earth’s eco dome. Our dojo will be built first at the center, and gradually we will build our living quarters … Read more
In addition to drawing your plan on graph paper, I suggest marking things on the floor or outside in the dirt to help you visualize your future home. (This assumes you’re building a small structure.) You can scratch an outline of your rooms on the ground with a pointed stick or use stakes to define … Read more
One way to save money and reduce your impact on the environment is to use unmilled roundwood when building your home. Wood in the round is much stronger than standard dimension lumber and requires less processing. In our case it enables us to use local, sustainably grown wood instead of wood shipped hundreds of miles. … Read more
It seems most people are using wood to attach rough frames (“bucks”) for windows and doors to earthbags. We have termites in our area and so we’re using galvanized sheet metal for this purpose. I’ve used both kinds and discovered sheet metal anchors are much faster to make. The first step is to cut sheet … Read more