Dear Kelly, dear Owen,
We are looking for someone with experience in building earthbag domes to instruct us in May. In autumn we stopped at almost ground level. Do you know someone in Europe? We pay expenses and salary at least for 2 weeks, maybe 4 weeks, depending on salary. Should be an English speaker. Building site is in Salicea, a small village, 12 km from Cluj (there is an airport).
We always enjoy hearing about reader’s projects. A reader just sent me photos of their earthbag tornado shelter in Ohio. We’ve been encouraging earthbag storm shelters since the beginning of this blog, because they’re low cost, efficient, simple to build and can save lives. The links below explain in detail how they’re built.
“I wanted to show you a picture of the work in progress. It took us two summers to build by the way, we had lots of interruptions. We just made sure it was well covered when we weren’t working on it, and well secured for the winter that it didn’t have stucco on it and we didn’t have any problems doing it this way. We live in Southern Ohio so we will have to be very attentive at repairing any cracks due to the weather. We have one already that needs fixed. With the air flow inside the shelter and stucco on the outside hopefully it will dry out quickly if any moisture gets between the stucco and the bags. We will see how it goes.
View from the front. The rock retaining wall is for a garden. It runs the length of the house and will be about 2.5 feet tall.
This post is from the Muddome blog:
“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.
From Sierra in Canada: Here is my Youtube video on the earthbag structure I have been working on for the last 3 years. It is almost complete…just needs some windows and doors installed and some finishing touches inside and out. I thought you might be interested to see the progress.
“We’re not sure if J.R.R. Tolkien inspired all 9 of these abodes, but we do believe they’re all Middle-earth worthy. From sod-covered cottages to a snazzy woodland pad, all these fanciful spaces would make a hobbit feel at home. FYI, Bilbo Baggins will return to the silver screen in, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” on Dec. 14.