Our focus here is on low cost, owner-built homes. From time to time it’s interesting to explore related ideas to see what’s available or going on. As we’ve reported before, there’s a whole industry that specializes in industrial earthbag projects using geotextiles or geosynthetics. Their primary journal is called Geosynthetics Magazine.
retaining wall
Geosynthetics Magazine
There’s a whole industry that specializes in industrial geotextiles, and an excellent online Geosynthetics Magazine for building professionals. They use similar polypropylene fabric as earthbags (sand bags), but use it for industrial purposes such as highway projects.
Dry-stacked Stone Walls
“Once you have selected your site, you need to choose your stones. Look for rocks with angular faces—they stack better and a give a firmer repose. Rounded rocks are almost impossible to build into a wall without using copious amounts of mortar. An ideal rock has six parallel faces (like a brick). Regretfully, there aren’t … Read more
Green Retaining Walls
Geosynthetics Magazine is a valuable go-to source for technical earthbag articles. This is a great, free resource for serious earthbag builders, especially commercial builders. They have a new article about natural green facades on earthbag highway retaining walls. It’s surprisingly simple and effective. The retaining wall is not only strong, it also looks good because … Read more