On Mar 6, 8:41*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 3/6/2010 3:19 PM aemeijers spake thus:





David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 3/6/2010 6:40 AM JIMMIE spake thus:

On Mar 4, 12:30 pm, JIMMIE wrote:

My friend and I were discussing building adobe home in areas where
adobe would not normally be used, Like here in North Carolina. We are
aware of its shortcomings for doing this but was trying to come up
with practical ways of overcoming them. Basically it gets down to are
their ways to make adobe hold up in wet climates short of mixing
concrete and calling it adobe.

Found out this AM that digging up local soil to make adobe or rammed
earth may not be very practical. In this case cutting blocks from the
ground would be the best way to make adobe bricks. It seems the soil
in my friends backyard is as hard as mine.

Sounds like you have caliche, no?

What is your time worth? Concrete block is pretty cheap, locally
produced from mostly local ingredients, and is a lot 'greener' than most
building materials. You can skim-coat the outside to get whatever look
you want, and you won't have to fight/educate the local code officials
about it. *With modern insulation materials and vapor barriers, it will
be as dry and warm inside as any other method of construction, and
properly laid and reinforced, it lasts A Real Long Time. People in US
scoff, but concrete and clay block are still routinely used for
residential construction in many parts of the world, especially those
that have used up their cheap trees. I've had visitors from Europe visit
a US construction site and ask why we build our houses out of twigs.

Remember, way back when. people used mud brick and straw to build with,
because that was all they had. We have better stuff now. 50 years, we
may be back to building from bricks of ultra-compressed garbage, and
have little Wall-e droids running all over the job sites.

Well, we have better stuff now, yes and no. Of course, nobody builds
adobes because it's technologically superior, although in many ways it
really is.

And one is probably not going to easily get away with building an adobe
house anywhere in the urban grid, at least not without a lot of hassle
and jumping through bureaucratic hoops, educating building inspection
departments about this primitive building material, mollifying
suspicious neighbors, etc., etc. It's really a building material for
homes in the outlying areas. At least that's where I've seen all the
adobes I knew about (mostly in northern Arizona). There are a few
exceptions: in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the city authorities are
enlightened enough to deal with adobe as just another choice of material.

Where adobe really shines, apart from its esthetic appeal, is in its
ability to temper the living space with minimal energy input. In this
sense it's really a "green" building material (how I hate that term!) in
the truest sense. It takes much less energy overall, apart from human
labor primarily (and some fuel to mix mud and transport materials) to
build an adobe than practically any other kind of dwelling which uses
manufactured materials. It's low-tech and very forgiving; you can
literally sculpt your walls using garden tools.

When I was back in my idealistic youth I attended an adobe workshop in
northern Arizona, where we got hands-on experience building two houses.
One thing we did that would be valuable to anyone interested in this
material was to build an horno, a traditional Mexican outdoor
bread-baking oven, out of adobe block. It's a small enough project that
you can get your hands dirty, experiment, get a feel (literally) for the
materials, and see if it's really for you. Plus you'll have a free
outdoor adobe oven you can use to cook all kinds of stuff in.

--
You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

great idea on the horno, Im thinking wood fired pizza oven

Jimmie