We’ve published several blog posts about earthbag houses in Malawai over the years. The big news in this most recent story is an NGO has created a fund for ongoing construction of earthbag houses in flood prone areas. They’ve realized a certain number of houses built of light weight materials are destroyed every year by floods, so now they have created a fund to rebuild some of them with earthbags.
flood resistant
Support Malawi Earthbag Projects
“Thank you Owen for this great development. Together with the Roscher Youth Development Centre in Rumphi, Malawi, I built a wonderful prototype of sandbag house last year, which now is impressing and convincing everyone about construction with earthbags (http://supportmalawi.org/en/projects/58-sandbaghouse). Aaand we now almost finished a first house for a teacher’s family.
Stilt Houses
“Stilt houses or pile dwellings are houses raised on piles over the surface of the soil or a body of water. Stilt houses are built primarily as a protection against flooding, but also serve to keep out vermin. The shady space under the house can be used for work or storage.
Open Source Disaster Resistant Earthbag Homes
Announcing a new open source project at Natural Building Blog with free plans available after completion of design. Please submit your suggestions below for an ultra low-cost, disaster resistant earthbag home for coastal areas that are vulnerable to hurricanes/cyclones and flooding.
More Earthbag Houses in Pakistan
Today’s post is from a group in Pakistan who’s building flood resistant houses. “Sir, the size of the structure is 20 feet by 12 feet. We have given a buttress on the back wall. We dug an 18 inch trench and put gravel till 6 inches. After doing so we tampered the gravel so that … Read more
Rubble Bag Houses
I’ve pulled together the recent posts on rubble bag houses, expanded and edited the info, and published a new blog post at Mother Earth News. It includes details on how to build and reinforce rubble walls. Concrete rubble from collapsed buildings is a huge problem in Haiti. It is blocking roads and hindering reconstruction. Instead … Read more