There is a glut of small diameter wood in many parts of the US, both in national forests and tree farms. This resource is often wasted as it becomes fuel in massive forest fires. On tree farms, where it barely pays the bills, small diameter wood is sold cheaply to make paper. Instead of sending … Read more
One of the most frequent questions people ask is how much do earthbag houses cost? It’s a little difficult to answer because there are many factors that affect the total cost. A lot depends on what features you want to add, whether or not you have building codes, how much work is done by the … Read more
Here’s an email from one of our readers (abbreviated for ease of reading). I just had a few questions about building an earthbag home, and I hope you can get me pointed in the right direction. First off, I’m broke, so these questions pertain to me saving up for my future home. My dream home … Read more
Since water is vital to life, and there is increasing scarcity of clean drinking water in much of the world, it makes sense to store this precious resource and use it wisely. Earthbags in combination with ferrocement offer a number of interesting alternatives for storing water. Three different methods are shown below. www.flickr.com/photos/10349013@N02/2798383930 www.flickr.com/photos/11222150@N02/1082496465 http://earthbagplans.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/earthbag-cistern/
Earthbag building (also called sandbag building) is surely one of the lowest cost, most practical building methods. First used by the military for building durable, bullet and blast resistant structures, this building method has recently experienced a surge of interest among do-it-yourself builders. There are now an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 earthbag structures, including homes, … Read more