The Sustainable Life School gave me a heads up about this ambitious earthbag project happening in Australia. You can see even more photos and commentary at www.instagram.com.
The Sustainable Life School gave me a heads up about this ambitious earthbag project happening in Australia. You can see even more photos and commentary at www.instagram.com.
Spectacular!
I’d like to know more about those straps on the earthbags, they must be a code requirement, but they aren’t on every course layer.
I assumed that the straps were their method of connecting the entire roof assembly to the earthbag wall. You can see in at least one of the photos how those straps extend up and over the rafters. This would certainly keep the roof from flying in a wind.
Kelly’s comment is correct, the ‘hurricane’ straps were placed 4 to 5 layers below the rafters and effectively hold the roof down to the ring beam (final , stabilised layer of bag) there are approximately 124 straps each with a breaking force of about 2 tonne each, the four layers of bag has a total weight of about 6 tonne distributed over the entire house. Possibly overkill but it is unlikely the roof will ever lift in high winds.
what a big project!!! great!! like how they made the roof!!
thanks Kelly for sharing!!!
Jehane