Development and passage of ASTM International E2392-10, Standard Guide for Design of Earthen Wall Building Systems. This four-year project has the greatest potential to affect the everyday lives and living conditions of billions of people in developing countries, where building materials such as wood, concrete and steel are expensive and scarce.
Bruce King, Ecological Building Network
Standards web page
Note: This group has been hugely influential in the growth of straw-bale construction, and I’m very glad they’re working to promote earthen building. But I don’t think they have incorporated the method developed by Precision Structural Engineering, Inc., whose reinforcement technique is a game changer for earthbag. There’s a world of difference between a stack of bags and an engineer- and code-approved reinforced wall system.
We are considering building an earthbag home. Due to the size of our family we really needed a two story however we have noticed that most straight walled EB homes had EB pillars as support for those long walls (we are not building in the round). I was wondering if there is any new information or if anyone has come up with any ideas for how to build a long tall wall minus those (bulky) EB supports. If anyone has any photos of longer taller walls without EB supports that would be fantastic! I noticed that at the website of inhabitat.com that guy was building tall walled structures without the EB supports is there anyone else that has been successful in this area? I hope so. Look forward to hearing back from you guys!
These topics are covered on our blog, and they’ll be in my upcoming earthbag book hopefully next month.
Confined earthbag: http://earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/confined-earthbags/
Reinforced earthbag: http://earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/reinforced-earthbag-specifications/
Both methods allow for long straight walls without buttresses to meet code. This is important because people (over 99%) want straight walls, most don’t like buttresses, and most need to meet code.
The third option is to add posts, but it doesn’t sound like you want this.
Please see posts on Eternally Solar EarthBag system and the structurally engineered wall that is possible.