Where are you going to build your sustainable home? For the best possible life you’ll want to find a community of people with the right attitude. In Crestone, Colorado, for example, there are straw bale, earthbag, adobe, earthship houses, etc. on almost every block. This tiny town has around 125 of these alternative buildings. The … Read more
What about using tires for foundations? In my opinion, earthbags are superior for foundations and walls. If you’re not convinced of this, tamp one tire (the way it’s supposed to be done, which takes 20 minutes or so). Then tamp the equivalent (in cubic inches) in earthbags and see for yourself which is easier. But … Read more
Bag stands can speed the bag filling process. Doni and Kaki provide details for building bag stands in their excellent book Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques. I like using a “bucket chute” — a plastic bucket with the bottom cut out. Here we present two commercially available bag stands for those who don’t … Read more
I invite you all to visit my new website Earthbag House Plans. At this point I have 77 earthbag plans in the preliminary design stage. Most are houses, but there are some cabins, shelters, sheds and shops. All are small and made with sustainable materials — earthbags, straw bales, earth floors, earth plaster, sustainably harvested … Read more
Several new earthbag planter projects have been added to our Projects webpage at EarthbagBuilding.com (our companion website). This seems like a popular option that has lots of potential. An Earthbag Raised Bed Garden from www.thefarm.org, Ecovillage Training Center, Summertown, TN provides their recipe, building techniques and photos for building planters/raised garden beds. Beth’s Earthbag Construction … Read more
Sandbags can be filled with a minimum of tools (often just a shovel is used), but sometimes you need machines to speed the work. Maybe there’s an urgent need due to flooding, or maybe you’re building a large number of sandbag (earthbag) houses. Here’s a sampling of some of the sandbag filling machines currently available. … Read more