I submitted my final house design proposal for the Shelters for All housing competition. As posted previously, I chose a bamboo and plastic bottle wall design that best meets the design criteria. Entry requirements called for a one page summary of the project, detailed time and cost estimates, and up to five pages of drawings. … Read more
This is how to make a banker cry. It’s their worst nightmare. It’s also how to change the world, one step at a time. Read my comments below after this brief intro. “Austin Hay is still in high school, but he’s building his own house. It’s only 130 square feet, but it makes him a … Read more
A big thanks to Luke for tipping me off on the Earthbag Builders group at Facebook. The focus of the group is primarily on earthbag, but there’s also related content such as this excellent video on converting shipping containers into low cost housing. I could watch videos like this all day long.
Yesterday’s blog post on Production Earthbag Building using Rice Hulls introduced one method for building walls with rice hulls. As you can see from the drawing above, the construction process is very straightforward. This method uses a standard post and beam frame with posts set in concrete footers and beams attached to the posts with … Read more
Developing a network of friends can be a big help for achieving your dream of home ownership. A quick search on Meetup.com for ‘earthbag’, just one of numerous social networking sites, turned up the following groups that may prove helpful. Texas Natural Builders “This group is for anyone interested in Natural Building. We explore and … Read more
Mike, in Texas, has been asking some interesting questions about wrapping a post and beam frame with tubes of rice hulls. He thinks this is probably the fastest way to build an earthbag house. He may very well be right. Conversations and blog posts like this one are my favorite. Here’s part of my email … Read more