Abe from Vela Creations and I have been exchanging ideas about his new Rapidobe building system. The biggest strong point for rapidobe is its speed and ease of construction. You could speed the process along even more with a Bobcat or tractor to dump soil into the wall cavity, and then have several workers for tamping. Abe tamps the soil while standing inside the wall.
rammed earth
Impact Testing Earthco Megablocks with Blackpowder Cannon
“We fired fence posts and bricks from a blackpowder cannon into an EarthCo Megablock wall made from local earth and water. These walls were produced from highly shrinking-swelling clay subsoil which produces a very low quality wall, however our goal was to show that even a low quality EarthCo Megablock wall has the structural integrity … Read more
Ancient Rammed Earth Structures
Earthbag building and rammed earth construction are very similar. Both methods utilize earth that has been tamped solid. In the case of earthbag building, polypropylene bags or tubes contain the soil and eliminate the need for expensive forms. Since they are very similar in composition, we can reasonably speculate that earthbag houses will last for … Read more
Sustainable Building
Sometimes we’re in a hurry and don’t always take time to think carefully about what we’re reading. This post links key sustainable building concepts to Wikipedia to facilitate further research. There have been lots of articles lately on sustainable building, also called green building and natural building, but what is it really? Sustainable building is … Read more