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Dan

Other than the obvious risk of termite infestation, I can't see any problem with that, or why cement would be preferable to earth. If it's got the wide overhangs and it's on a stem wall, earth would, I think, be fine. Adding sand or organic fibres to your clay will reduce the risk of cracking. Also, working in several thin layers will do the same. Why not make a small panel, plaster it with earth and see what happens? It shouldn't take long.

benlovesnuk

Where did you get your info or understanding that termites like earth buildings, is this personal experience or hear say, internet etc etc????

Its just that From quite a wide source i understand that termites have no interest in adobe or cob for any purpose, especially compacted soil mixed in this fashion its simply not a food source or even possible for them to generally borough through! I believe termites that come from the ground can be stopped by adding a sand barrier i think of about an inch thick when compacted down as they cannot get through.

Secondly termites that fly which there are some in chiangmai, have to be dealt with in other ways, but like i said im pretty certain that they have no interest in adobe cob or any other earth mix for building....only wood!

One last thing traditionally, as has been done for over 500 years in devon though it fluctates depending on what was applicable in the region in the earth at the time, the mix is typically 20% clay 80% aggregate, the adding of straw or coconut hairs or whatever is added after...this should give a pretty strong sturdy mix that should not buckle when rolled in a ball and dropped from shoulder height!

__________________
im hot its so hot today.......milk was a bad choice!

benlovesnuk

your clay seems high in comparison to sand, as i said this would be my first mix then add the husk not sure you need any cement upto you, the sand should not be beach sand the more coarse the better rough shapes hold together better. Get your local woody to make the form out of wood and test with the different percentages of mix. You can get straw probably just as easily as coconut husk really anything goes but straw is in my opinion a better holding agent to clay and sand and also more common to the techniques ive used!

The techniques you mention are still relatively unreferenced and only hit the last 30 years or so in more mainstream use as a viable method for cheap, strong natural building. The use of bamboo is obviously proven i think wattle and daub would be me my choice using the bamboo as would have been the wood timber frame of old builds. Then using a weavethrough your uprights you'll create a board to daub on. clay water and hoarse hair, husk straw to add to fill in.,very lightweight and strong.

cant wait for everyones finshed plans

Dan

a. Smithson's picture shows a bamboo building. Termites have been fairly interested in the bamboo I have lying around on my land so I think there's a fair chance they might be interested in his.

b. Termites can easily pass through adobe or cob. Rammed earth is - I believe - different. At Pun Pun they have had to knock down adobe buidlings because of termites. The ternites are obviously not interested in the adobe itself but they tunnel through it to things they are interested in (window frames, books, etc), much as in any regular house.

It's true that termites can't get through some sand but it has to be a certain size (too big to carry, too small to provide gaps through which they can move), and a lot thicker than an inch.

The point about the clay is that to a large degree it depends what type of clay you have and which is why it's not necessarily very useful saying "you don't have enough sand." My clay is notably non-expansive so my adobes don't suffer from cracking (I've already made 100% clay test bricks which are now almost completely dry and they haven't had any cracking at all.) Following recipes, particularly recipes from a country with a very different climate and geology, is not the best way forward. This will no doubt become clear to you when you start building.

benlovesnuk

I believe you are right, i would not be surprised to find out that they can enter crack lines more easily in adobe then cob and as you mentioned rammed earth. At punpun i dont think they concern themselves too much with active pest control or prevention from my contact with them they do not apply similar building regulations or methods as thourougly as most would want - as you say they are more hippy and open natured towards their lifestyle and choice of building.

Sand can help prevent intrusion from termites although not widely field tested has shown more complication then just pumping chemicals into the ground. But where possible natural prevention in materials for pests and also in design and living would be preferable where ever possible for myself. There are some quite good reads on the internet!

Im glad that you have taken the plunge with some testing, i hope you havent read too much into my other posts beforehand there is sometimes a neccessity to facilitate caution when writing on these sites. Although my posts seem garbled and attacking their was a genuine though now seemingly unneccessary reason.

I completely understand and admire those that do rather then say, and then afterwards share - practical knowledge is unquestionably the key to building in this unreferenced difficult method. I once again wish you well in your building and also smithson for putting something different into action to show that vernacular architecture has beauty and meaning in this very generic concrete building craze.

good luck to you both!

benlovesnuk

Dan, your comment about different climate and geology intrigued me, i had a quick look and found this about a complimentary building system that is half adobe half rammed earth - because of your initial interests i thought i would highlight this to your attention.

I am confident you might have heard of this before, i have not, and maybe thought we could discuss it further?

Compressed earth block - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

some typical examples of its advantages over most other techniques:

Other advantages:

• Non-toxic: materials are completely natural and do not out-gas toxic chemicals
• Sound resistant: an important feature in high-density neighborhoods, residential areas adjacent to industrial zones
• Fire resistant: earthen walls do not burn
• Insect resistant: the walls are solid and very dense, discouraging insects
• Mold resistant: there is no cellulose material - such as in wood, Oriented Strand Board or drywall - that can host mold

hope to hear your your opinion on the matter?

Dan

Look at the first and second pages of this thread. I looked into CEBs but decided against it. They have a lot of advantages over adobe - principally that they're stronger and more stable and uniform - but it seems that they're also more difficult to make in that the mix and moisture levels have to be much more precisely managed and you have to screen your materials much more carefully. You also have the cost of investing in a press (or buying blocks), which doesn't really appeal to me as I can't see myself building more than one house.

I did some drop tests on my last set of adobes today. Interestingly, the pure clay, the clay/rice husk/sand, and the clay/rice husk/sand/cement all seemed to have equal strength - all only broke slightly on the corner when dropped from chest height (which is what they should do). The only difference was when I jumped on the clay, which shattered, whereas those with rice husks were unaffected. I spent the day making a new set of test blocks (16 clay, 5 chopped straw, 5 rice husk, 4 sand). They came out looking pretty good but mixing straw into clay is a bastard compared to the rice husks.

benlovesnuk

Sorry completely missed your entry!?!

What are you proposing to use as a mortar?

what size are your bricks, will they be completely uniform all over in size?

How much mud do you think youll need to complete the house?

Have you considered just building to the first floor with adobe and then by frame (either wood bamboo) and then wattle and daub? or do you have too big a termite problem?

will you build the roof out of adobe or are you going to be using something else?

cheers

Texpat

Wondering how bamboo will hold together after 10 years of moisture/drying cycles. What do you figure the strength might be?

I'm no engineer, but this thread has provided more than a few laughs.

Why don't the metropolitian authorities of Bangkok, KL and Singapore build their bridges and high rises and landmarks from bamboo?

Perhaps they're missing something.

Dan

Hi Ben -

I'll use mud as mortar for the adobes. You just mix it thinner than for adobes.

My mould is 40 cm x 20 cm x 10 cm, though a standard size is 14 x 10 x 4 inches. They'll be as uniform as I can get them but I'm drying them on the ground so irregularities there are reflected in the abodes and if you make the mix too runny, they slump when you remove the mould....but this is a mud house, not BMW engineering. I've toyed with the idea of making a vaulted ceiling, in which case, I'd need to make smaller adobes for that.

My hut is 4m x 3m and the walls will be 2m high and 20cm wide so that's about 5 cubic metres. I haven't made any firm plans for my house yet, so I'm not sure about that but it'll be a fuck of a lot of mud to dig out of the ground.

It - my hut - is only going to be one floor and it'll be 100% adobe but the adobes will sit on a stem wall. This will be made of polypropylene bags stuffed with rubble and then plastered with cement stucco. If I can find something suitable, the adobes will sit on a metal termite barrier - ie between the stem wall and adobes - so when the termites come - the bastards are everywhere on my land - I should, in theory, be able to see their mud tunnels as they'll have to come up the exterior of the stem wall and so I'll be able to deal with them. For the house, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm building the hut to see what problems arise and how things work out. Once I've got a better idea of this, I'll make a decision about the house.

I'll almost certainly have some kind of regular tile roof. The traditional adobe roofs are fine for New Mexico but - for obvious reasons - they'd be a disaster in Thailand. I also want to collect my rainwater so I'm really going to have to go with some kind of light manufactured tile. I'd love to have something natural but, unless I can find a source of old shingles, I don't think it's going to happen.

Marmite the Dog

What about a steel or aluminium roof?

benlovesnuk

Thanks for your answers very intriguing and informative! I think they call what your doing with the bags and rubble super adobe, so this will be your foundation wall (stem wall) which will give you a rain barrier between your adobe and ground?

Or are you thinking more in lines with bigger bag easier to lay quicker to lay etc(is there a reason you're not using blocks like durox or for that matter just stone)?

Have you had any more thoughts on the possibility of rammed earth, i think a building like this in thailand would certainly stand out it would be some achievement. sometimes hobbies become reasons to think about doing things as a business, do you think this could be done(you seem fairly active and highly informed on the subject)?

You certainly seem to have the right temperament and understanding, more then most your practicality demonstrates this in your reasoning and method!
I am wanting badly to be in a position you are, and this is sometimes reflected in my short naive comments about such and such a thing. However its not for a lack of knowledge though only theory in reading which is why sometimes i come up a bit short on practical through put and what indeed are real conclusions to building in this way!

One more thing i know you would have mentioned it but where exactly are you residing currently?

cheers dan all the best!

Rural Surin

How guache.

Dan

Could do. Because the roof is not going to be done by me and because it's going to be a standard shop-bought solution, it doesn't really excite me and I haven't - probably stupidly - given it a lot of thought.

Yes, exactly. It's basically super adobe for the foundations. And yes again. It's there to get the adobes off the ground and away from water and termites.

I bought the smallest bags I could find. I don't have one here but I think it's about 30 cm x 50 cm when packed. I wouldn't want to go any bigger because they weigh a fucking ton when they're full of rubble. I think that - at least for me - the advantages of doing fewer bags would be seriously outweighed by getting shagged out moving big bags around. I'm sure what durox is but I guess it's some kind of manufactured block. As far as I can judge, gravel has the least emboddied energy which is why I'm using that.

I would love to do rammed earth - I think it looks beautiful - but I'm just not sure of my technical abilities; this is my first foray into building and rammed earth is much more technical than adobe. I'm also not sure whether it would be possible to get the pneumatic tampers in Thailand. I've done some hand-tamping and for small areas it's possible but doing a whole house by hand would be a horror. Perhaps when everything is done, I might build a rammed earth sala in the garden. As I said above, I'm sure there's a market for natural building in Thailand, though it won't be huge, but I can't see myself taking advantage of it. I've decided that being poor but idle is the way forward; as long as I have enough money for cow shit and cabbage seeds, I'll be happy.

Thank you but a lot of this stuff really isn't that difficult. Building - at least on the domestic scale - has been done by regular people for millennia. Unfortunately, we've allowed others to take over and commercialise this and many other areas of our lives when we're quite capable of doing it ourselves.

I hope you can get building soon!

Marmite the Dog

How ignorant.

Smithson

Steel/colorbond is good, lighter than tiles, which means less materials and labor. With insulation it's also much cooler. I'd been thinking about using coconut fibre as insulation and today I read it's already being done in wall cavities. This is a very sustainable material, but I'm not sure how you'd use in in a roof.

Over the weekend I saw a matting made from palm oil fiber, this stuff is being used as a mulch for laying on top of soil, but it also looks very suitable for insulation.

Nawty

Is the matting expensive....compared to straw say ?

Smithson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texpat Wondering how bamboo will hold together after 10 years of moisture/drying cycles.

A well built house made from borax treated bamboo should last decades. Take a look at your average Thai concrete house, they generally look pretty shite after 20 years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texpat What do you figure the strength might be?

Pound for pound bamboo is stronger than mild steel. It can handle hurricanes better than timber and earthquakes better than concrete.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texpat I'm no engineer, but this thread has provided more than a few laughs.

Obviuosly not an engineer, most I've spoken to are impressed with bamboo. What really cracks me us is when ppl build western style houses over here. After building a place that costs over a million baht, the family ends up spending all their time under a bamboo and thatch lean-to because the house is too hot!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texpat Why don't the metropolitian authorities of Bangkok, KL and Singapore build their bridges and high rises and landmarks from bamboo?

Bamboo scafolding is common through out Asia. In China they have made a prefab bamboo bridge that can handle 8 ton trucks. The stuff has played a major role Asian cultures, so using it to build landmarks would be fitting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texpat Perhaps they're missing something.

Construction grade bamboo only needs to be three years old and because the mother plant isn't killed it can be harvested every year. Realizing the need for sustainable resource the world is starting to catch on to the potential of this material.

Although I think it'll be a while before it's common in Texas, judging from the politicians, appears their a little slow down there!

Smithson

I have no idea, I'm keen to find out, looks a little like those rough door mats. Apparently it's made in Krabi, that's all I know. Over the weekend I went to a royal project in NN where they had a sample. If you have time the place is worth a look, nice organic vegie gardens and other stuff like bio-diesel.

benlovesnuk

Smithson -

What type of bamboo do you plan to use?

Will you use specialized builders or are you comfortable in your plans to use any mother and their uncle?

Are you going to just be using bamboo or will it be coupled with other materials like for the roof or foundation wall?

are you going to be connected to mains water electric or go solo and collect and generate yourself?

look forward to your plans!