Please post your earth building resource pages/documents to this thread so we can have a single thread full of earth building resources to refer to. To start off, a good resource from New Zealand where earth building is becoming increasingly popular - they have created a set of standards now recognised by building authorities and councils. The Earth Building Association Of New Zealand (Click to view) Be sure to check out the 'articles' section if you're interested in this topic. And a great resource on super adobe 'earth bag' building: Cal-Earth - The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Click to view)
Great idea Jez, My favorite for earth building that also incorporates a number of excellent concepts (that can be used in other construction styles) is the Earthship: https://www.greenhomebuilding.com/earthship.htm The greenhomebuilding site gives an Earthship overview and also contains links to earthship.org and other related earth-sheltered building sites. 9anda1f
Earhbag building is really exciting! I read about it a few years back, and have watched Mr. Kalili's Cal Earth grow over the years. When Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer published their book on earthbag building, I bought a copy. Most of March (March 5th to April 1st) we will be hosting a workshop to build the first ever earthbag building in Belize. We are building a new building here at MMRF, an Earthbag building with Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer in March. It is going to be the kitchen. More on Doni and Kaki https://www.okokok.org/ and our course listing page (still room for more students! Space is limited, sign up NOW to avoid the rush!) https://www.mmrfbz.org/earthbag.html I also like earth ships, but our water table is so high that we would have to elevate the building and then back fill dirt on it, which is hard without bulldozers. Still, rammed tires are a great way to go, and we may be using rammed tires with gravel for the foundation of our earthbag building..
Chris, Be warned, you can compact a tyre with anything you like, including concrete, and ...and... it will still wriggle its way up to the top. I run a dump and I know from 100 years of collective 'dumping' that it is impossible to bury a tyre, from the inside or the outside. Eventually the tyre will make its way to the surface, millions has been spent on compaction practises to actually bury a tyre. A lot are still buried, but for how long? Tyres have remarkable thermal and stretch properties which why, over the past 50 years of trying, they have been designated ''impossible to bury''. I only say this because it is now illegal to bury a tyre in most countries because it just disguises the real problem. floot
Onya Jez, a couple of personal favourites https://www.earth-auroville.com/index.ph ... rld&id1=26 https://www.earth-auroville.com/index.ph ... ault&id1=1 https://www.networkearth.org/naturalbuil ... tbild.html Cheers
Great work so far everyone. This paper is US specific, but there's some good info in there which is universal on Green Building, plus the whole thing is very much Peak Oil oriented (I'm not endorsing the info and conclusions 100%, just a good document to read/have): The Energy Impact of Our Buildings (PDF - Click To Download)
A really great overview of earth-sheltered building considerations: https://www.lcs.net/users/pinecrest/text/design.htm And a listing of earth-sheltered project sites: https://www.earth-house.com/Green_Homes/Real_Estate/Earth_Sheltered/earth_sheltered.html And a little underground philosophy: https://www.subsurfacebuildings.com/ArchitectoftheInvisible.html 9anda1f
A quite startling fact: Excerpted from: https://www.subsurfacebuildings.com/DiggingfortheGreen.html (I think that https://www.earth-house.com site was the "mother-lode" of links!) 9anda1f
Very interesting site: Beginners Guide to Biogas (Click to view) Few things which also may be useful to someone here: Sara River Dot Com (Click to view) Hat tip to Michael Lardelli from BOSA.
Re: The Earth Building Resources Thread The episode of Ownerbuilder Australia (austar foxtel) this week 3, 4, 7, 8 Sept is on building a rammed earth with car tyres and sustainable house.
Rammed Earth - ish I'm looking at ramming resources & sensible building techniques for Oz, particularly near Albany, Western Australia. My initial concept is to build a semi-underground on a hillside with rammed-earth lower walls, wood floor between storeys, styrene/fibro panels (a la Armadillo Housing) for the upper walls, haven't thunk about a ceiling yet (if there is one beyond sheets of styrene), skew/slanted-flat colourbond roof. I would like reasonable earth-tremor resistance & some high-speed wind resistance. My gunnerbee wife is (amongst other things) an interior-designer. I will seriously let her imagination run riot amongst this before making any decisions permanent. I would also like locals with real Permaculture knowledge to chat with. Now for something completely random: I'm into Open Source & am quite happy to set up Linux machines for y'all.
