clayton jacobs

Rocket Science

Wow.. great info. Thank you!!

I am looking for advice on the best all around book on tree propagation through cuttings, grafting, etc... I am a noob at this and have been growing my nursery from seed and now need to start using established trees to beget more trees!! Any advice would be deeply appreciated!
thanks in advance!

eye4earthbags McCoy wrote:The cheapest I've been able to find earthbags at is about

$250 for 1000.

Hoping that someone knows of an organization that donates free earthbags or at least a price cheaper than $250/1000. 

The earthbag house I'm planning to build will need 2000 earthbags min, closer to 5000.  I have 3 kids - I'm 5'10, hubby 6'2 so we need it to be tall - kids will prob. grow to be taller than us.  Filling that many earthbags is hard, but easier than forming and baking that many adobe bricks with nearly the same bennies as adobe brick.

I found this place that sells used but clean sandbags but have yet to get the quote back from 'em.  After reading the awesome posts on here, I'm sold on earthbags completely.  The results are amazing!

here is a source that is about as cheap as can be!

http://www.saraglove.com/White-Poly-Sandbags-p/psb-sandbags-p.htm?gclid=CMaIlcbDsb8CFVFp7AodSBoAzQ

All the best,
Clayton

Gilbert Fritz wrote:I need to mix my clay soil with sand, as I will be building an earthbag structure, and also some CEB bricks for paths and floors.

The question is, how do I get the sand (and cement in the case of the CEBs) evenly mixed with the clay? Wet clay is extremely hard to work. Also, an initially dry mix is better, since it is easier to add some water then take it back out. Dry clay turns into rock hard lumps. I have been crushing and screening it dry, and then mixing in the additives, but it is labor intensive.

A tractor with a front loader would be a big help in mixing a very large batch of soil and sand... even a bucket on an earthmover too... on a small scale, you could use a mortar mixer to mix them thoroughly using dry ingredients.
All the best,
Clayton

Aj Meuleman wrote:Hi All;

My house plan and property layout will be such that we will have a sunken courtyard (2m below ground level), completely round with a radius of 15m and then we will build a series of Domes with vaults connecting the domes.

I'm down to 1m depth now and I'm worried by what I found as far as our Clay goes. It is full of little reddish, round pebbles/stones. Size is between 3mm up to about 8mm in diameter.

Can I use this Clay, with Sand mixed in, to fill my Earthbags? Will the little stones cause the composition to be unstable in the long run?

Thank you for any advise in this regard

AJ

No worries on the stones in the soil! Many earthbag structures have been made with only stone filler... and even ground coral.
All the best,
Clayton

I bought the "$50 dollar and up book" about 2 years ago and have been fascinated by it... I have been contemplating what our new-home-build-style will be for 3 years... cob, earthbag, Oehler-style underground, straw-bale, timberframe.... etc. I have been studying each for several years and am a huge fan of alt.building.

Having said that, we were surrounded by wild fire here in California all last week. 3 helicopters were flying from our property for 3 days to fight the blaze. There were evacuation orders and one home burned and many outbuildings lost to fire. It was contained when it reached the ridge line facing us...

NOW... the choice seems pretty clear... I am set on going underground!! Thanks Mike for your pioneering work in this style and making it so much easier for all of us to envision and design our homes based on your research and experience!