“In meetings with the community, getting feedback about the two completed constructions, and trying to decide on next steps forward, we learned that the super adobe style of building (soil stabilized with cement), although designed to be an affordable answer to the problem of durable housing, was still economically out of the reach of most people in Haiti, owing to the incredibly inflated cost of building materials.
“This summer being scorched under the glaring Texas sun, my wife and I had an idea. We need a swimming pool. Our thoughts were grand, our visions long. Covered, big, deep, beautiful, were some of the adjectives that sprang to mind. It was going to be a thing to behold, our in-ground pool.
“by Roberto Lou Ma, Civil Engineer, Centro de Experimentación enTecnología Apropiada, Guatemala
The CETA-RAM is a manually operated block press, developed by the author just after the February 1976 Guatemalan Earthquake, specifically for the production of hollow soil-cement building blocks. The hollow blocks are intended for use in reinforced masonry for low cost earthquake resistant housing.The CETA-RAM is a modified version of the well known CINVA-RAM.
“Innovation: Eco-friendly bricks using rice husk ash
What it does: Converts ash into bricks, preventing it from ruining the enviroment
“How to make gardening easy. Simple gardening tips. We summarize simple tips that we found to work well in our garden that doesn’t take a lot of cash to implement.”
We’ve featured several Tiny Texas Houses projects here on our blog. Some readers may be interested in building their own recycled homes and so I thought we’d take a look at their educational materials. Here is the product description of the 4 DVD instructional set from Tiny Texas Houses.