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Earthbag Building the Tools,Tricks and Techniques Advance Praise for Earthbag Building The Tools,Tricks and Techniques This inviting, complete guide to earthbag construction is humorous, very well written, and chock full of good ideas and dynamite illustrations. When you finish reading this book there's only one thing left to do: get out there and get to it! — Dan Chiras, Co-author of The Natural Plaster Book and author of The Natural House, The Solar House, and Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods Natural building practitioners, like Kaki and Doni, have persevered through years of trial and error, teaching, learning, innovating and becoming respected leaders of the natural building community. As Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques demonstrates, Kaki and Doni are smart, they are playful, they are wise, they are fine teachers and they have lots of get down and dirty practical experience to share about how to transform bags of earth and earth/lime plasters into beautiful and sensual buildings. We offer a deep bow to these champions of natural building, who (we now know) are doing real and transformational work; offering us doable ways to meet our basic human need for shelter in ways that are restorative and sustainable to both the earth and the spirit. — Judy Knox and Matts Myhrman, Out On Bale, Tucson, Arizona Who would have thought that you could make a beautiful, super solid and durable home using dirt-filled grain sacks? Earthbag Building shows not only that you can, but that you can have fun and feel secure doing it. With humor, integrity and delight, Kaki and Doni have distilled into written word and clear illustration their years of dedicated research and work refining the process and tools for this promising building technique. Their thorough approach and objective discussions of pros, cons and appropriate applications makes this book a must-read for natural building enthusiasts and skeptics alike. — Carol Escott and Steve Kemble, co-producers of How To Build Your Elegant Home with Straw Bales The Tools, Tricks and Techniques Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalog record for this publication is available from the National Library of Canada. Copyright © 2004 by Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer. All rights reserved. Cover design by Diane McIntosh. Cover Image: Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer. Printed in Canada. Paperback ISBN: 0-86571-507-6 Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Eartthbag Building should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please add $4.50 shipping to the price of the first copy, and $1.00 for each additional copy (plus GST in Canada). Send check or money order to: New Society Publishers P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada 1-800-567-6772 New Society Publishers’ mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an eco- logically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. We are acting on our commitment to the world’s remaining ancient forests by phasing out our paper supply from ancient forests worldwide. This book is one step towards ending global deforestation and climate change. It is printed on acid-free paper that is 100% old growth forest-free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable based, low VOC inks. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at: www.newsociety.com NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS www.newsociety.com Books for Wiser Living from Mother Earth News Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more-sustainable lifestyles, New Society Publishers has joined forces with Mother Earth News. For more than 30 years, Mother Earth has been North America's “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature. Across the countryside and in our cities, New Society Publishers and Mother Earth News are leading the way to a wiser, more sustainable world. Contents Acknowledgments . ix Foreword . xi Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: The Merits of Earthbag Building . 3 Chapter 2: Basic Materials for Earthbag Building . 13 Chapter 3: Tools, Tricks and Terminology . 33 Chapter 4: Foundations . 53 Chapter 5: Structural Design Features for Earthbag Walls . 69 Chapter 6: Step-by-Step Flexible Form Rammed Earth Technique, or How to Turn a Bag of Dirt into a Precision Wall Building System . 77 Chapter 7: Electrical, Plumbing, Shelving, and Intersecting Walls: Making the Connection . 97 Chapter 8: Lintel, Window, and Door Installation . 103 Chapter 9: Roof Systems . 109 Chapter 10: Arches: Putting the Arc Back into Architecture . 123 Chapter 11: Dynamics of a Dome . 133 Chapter 12: Illustrated Guide to Dome Construction . 145 Chapter 13: Roofing Options for Domes . 163 Chapter 14: Exterior Plasters . 171 Chapter 15: Interior Plasters . 187 Chapter 16: Floors . 197 Chapter 17: Designing for Your Climate . 205 Chapter 18: The Code . 215 Appendix A: Build Your Own Dirtbag Tools . 221 Appendix B: How to Figure Basic Earthbag Construction Costs, Labor, and Time . 233 Appendix C: Conversions and Calculations . 237 Appendix D: The Magic of a Circle . 239 Resource Guide . 241 Index . 249 About the Authors . 259 Acknowledgments ight off the bat, we’d like to thank Chris Plant invitations to do fun stuff because,“...oh, man, we’d love Rat NSP for his perseverance, patience and to but ... we’re still working on the book...(four years persistence in pursuing his interest in our book later) ... uh ... still working on the book ... the book ... project ever since that fateful phone call in 2000. still working on it ... yep, the same book...” Yep folks, that’s how long ago we started this mission. Thank you Boody Springer (Kaki’s son) — you Constructing Earthbag Building has been a monumental and your generation were a tremendous motivation undertaking, more so than actually building an for this work. Thank you Christy Williams, Elenore earthbag house! But we now know that all the fret, Hedden and Cynthia Aldrige for working your white sweat and zillion hours has turned a bunch of paper magic on healing you know what in the nick of you and ink into a dirtbag manifesto of beauty and useful- know when. ness ready to inspire alternative builders around the A big fat hug goes to our partner in grime, (the world. We are proud of our collective achievement. third ok in okokok Productions), Kay Howe. She, Thank you Chris for taking this on! more than anyone was (and still is) the most positive, Kudos go to our editor, Ingrid Witvoet and personable, playful, proactive dirtbag enthusiast we Artistic Designer, Greg Green for plowing through know. While we were building the Honey House the voluminous material we bombarded them with. an onlooker commented,“That sure looks like a lot Special thanks goes to Sue Custance for her steadfast of hard work.” Kay responded laughing,“So what?” participation and careful arrangement of the layout. (This attitude from a single mother of four). It is no mean feat to fit some 480 plus images within Lastly, we’d like to thank everyone that has ever 280 some pages. handed us a can of dirt, diddled a corner with us, Much appreciation goes to our local support tamped a row, hardassed a butt, played ring around the system, Tom and Lori O’Keefe at Action Shots, Teresa barbed wire or just plain stood around and made bril- King and company at Canyonlands Copy center and liant suggestions that we were too oblivious to notice, Dan Norris at Ancient Images. we’d like to say from the bottom of our hearts — With much love and gratitude we’d like to thank Hurray! Thank God it’s finished!! our families, Tom and Katherine Hunter (Kaki’s parents) and Doni’s mom Helen Kiffmeyer for their We love you all sooooo much! unwavering encouragement and our loyal friends for — Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer still loving us in spite of the many times we’d declined IX Foreword BY LYNNE ELIZABETH uilding with earthbags is gutsy. Gutsy because Military bunkers and trenches were constructed Bonly the brave take up a construction method so with earthbags during World War I, and the use of different from the conventional. Gutsy because people sand or earthbag retaining walls to divert flood build homes with this technique when they’ve just waters is ubiquitous. Appropriate building technol- learned it. Gutsy because the materials are basic, ele- ogists Otto Frei and Gernot Minke of Germany mental, primal. And gutsy, indeed, because this experimented independently in the 1960s and 70s construction system resembles, in form and assembly, with wall systems using earth-filled bags. nothing other than our own intestines! Credit for developing contemporary earthbag A shovel, bags, a little barbed wire and the earth construction goes to architects Nader Khalili and beneath are all that are needed to build with earth- Illiona Outram of the California Earth Art and bags. The method offers more structural integrity Architecture Institute in Hesperia, known as Cal- than adobe, more plasticity than rammed earth, and Earth. Starting with domed and vaulted assemblies more speed in construction than cob. Although of individual earth-packed bags, they later discov- earthbag is new compared to these ancient building ered that the polypropylene bags they had been methods, it offers superior economy and durability stuffing could be obtained in uncut, unstitched, con- in domed and vaulted assemblies.
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