Numerous structures have been built with rice hulls over the years. We’ve previous reported on the Rice Hull B&B and Paul’s Rice Hull Earthbag House. Up till now we’ve had little to no feedback on their effectiveness over time, particularly when it comes to moisture damage. Richard Gingris who’s been reporting on projects at New Life Foundation forwarded me the following email discussion with Maggi at Chiang Dao Roundhouses B&B. With this positive feedback from Maggi, Richard will be recommending building with rice hull bags at New Life in the future.
rice hull house
Rice Hull B&B in Thailand
“Slightly before my 60th birthday I realised I had made no plans for my old age, and did not have any money put aside for it either. Thailand was my home, but no government pensions available, so what could I do that I would enjoy, which would also bring in a bit of money to live by. I decided to buy some land with my last few pennies, and go to the UK for a few years and earn some money, and save every penny I could. I bought a fantastic piece of land in Chiang Dao, northern Thailand, and spent several years in the UK saving like mad.
Rice Hull House Wall Section
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
Production Earthbag Building using Rice Hulls
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
Rice Hull Earthbag House
I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with Paul in Chiang Dao, a district north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. We’ve been discussing how to build an earthbag house with bags filled with rice hulls. Rice hulls are super cheap, fire resistant, superinsulating, and super lightweight and easy to work with. Rice hulls are the by-product of … Read more