If you’ve been watching our videos, you’ve seen us making various earthen blocks. This one here is the best one so far. It has clay and rice hulls. Another very good block was the clay with vetiver grass. So I had the idea to combine the best – the rice hulls and the vetiver. That’s … Read more
We’re experimenting with rice hulls and clay to make lightweight building blocks. We’re using 25% rice hulls on our first test block. This is our first test block with a rice hull/clay mixture. This is not the most efficient way to mix it, of course, but we’re just doing small samples. Normally you’d use a … Read more
There’s growing interest in lightweight bag fill materials as alternatives to more labor intensive soil-filled earthbags. While lightweight materials such as scoria, perlite, etc. are not as stable as tamped earth, their higher insulation value and labor saving advantages offer tantalizing possibilities for certain designs, locales and site conditions. We’re currently investigating vetiver grass as … Read more