DIY

Record Traffic on our Blog and Free Plan

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Welcome to our Natural Building Blog. Like the title says, we’re experiencing record traffic. Most new readers are going to our Earth Sheltered / Underground House Plans page. First, I’d like to encourage new readers to search our site for low cost innovative building ideas. There’s over 1,460 blog posts on many different topics. Our … Read more

Plumbing and Electrical Summary for Earthbag Houses

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Embed anchors for electrical boxes between courses of bags as you build.
Embed anchors for electrical boxes between courses of bags as you build.

These topics have already been covered in various posts on our blog, but I’m pulling everything together here for easy reference. Our blog now has 1,460 blog posts and it’s getting more difficult to find things. For those building an earthbag home, the bottom line is plumbing and electrical is 99% the same as conventional construction. The few differences are shown here. Everything else you need to know can be learned from library books or pocket guides. I prefer simple electrical and plumbing pocket guides because they show only what you need.

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A Practice Earthbag Building Project

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Earthbag building project is good practice for building an earthbag home.
Earthbag building project is good practice for building an earthbag home.

“If you are considering the cheapest simplest way of building your own home with natural materials, earthbag construction could be the best way to go. For the most part you will be filling bags with dirt and stacking them. In the August/September 2009 Mother Earth News, they ran an article on this small earthbag project which needs no building permit and would be great practice in the earthbag technique or even cob, rammed earth with tires or adobe.

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Slipform Stone Masonry

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One could argue with the “fast and easy” description of slipform stone masonry at the beginning of the video. He’s probably saying it’s faster than traditional masonry, which is true. Actually, most natural building methods, including stone construction, are quite labor intensive. The payoff though is a house that’s fire and rot resistant, super durable and super beautiful. Note the centuries-old stone houses in recent blog posts. One option is to use stone on the foundation and other faster and easier to use materials for the rest of the wall.

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