Formblock Building

So .... you mix portland cement and dirt to make blocks and then stack the blocks?

Kinda.  You bolt the forms up in the location where you want the wall.  Then fill the forms and once it cures you remove them and re-stack them on top of the first layer of wall (about 1.5 ft tall) then repeat the process.  The blocks are pretty large so you want to make them where the home is getting built and not have to move them. 

Seems pretty simple and when looking into it there seems to be allot of people who use this style in australia.

Peace

Looks like earthcrete meets slipform. Kinda cool.

I suppose it would be completely weather proof. 

But it would take a long time to build a house, wouldn't it?

well, it's not so different from Cob in that respect, from what I can see. You're limited by how many forms you have, but one layer at a time is all you can do with cob as well... just a thought.

how long till you can remove the forms to start the next layer? I would think in the big scheme of things it would go pretty fast. at least faster than a stick built done by owner.

it does not say on thier website how long it takes to set but i would think you could probably remove the forms and start the next layer every 2 days or so.  And remember all you have to do is mix the earth/cement and pour. With most other styles of building your going to take the same amount of time to make the same area but working 8 hours hard labor a day.

Leah Sattler wrote:
how long till you can remove the forms to start the next layer? I would think in the big scheme of things it would go pretty fast. at least faster than a stick built done by owner.

Their site says "overnight". I would suggest it would take all day to setup one level and then fill it anyway. (I know... old thread but at least the answer is in there.)

Len

I built an adobe home like this. We came up with the slipform idea instead of moving the blocks 100 times.

It works pretty good, but I suggest a Tbrick form.  It is faster, and the wall locks together much better:
http://www.velacreations.com/adobe.html

You can put another layer on after about 12-24 hours of curing, depending on your climate.  it goes pretty fast.

The real slow part about adobe, however, is the mixing, not the brick making.  So, figure out a good way to mix and you could really move with a slipform setup.  Tractor mixing would be best.

I prefer earthbag building or compressed earth blocks because of the mixing issue with adobe.