Earthbag Daydream
When I first read about Ryo Chijiiwa’s tiny cabin on Tiny House Blog I was fascinated by the adventure this fellow was on. He quit his job at Google, traveled America, and is now working to setup a more comfortable place to live on the remote property that he recently purchased in northern California. You can read about it on his blog, Laptop and a Rifle.
But what I’ve been obsessing over for days is a simple solution that someone like Ryo could theoretically implement for a little money and a lot of sweat equity, an earthbag tiny house. Below is my earthbag daydream for simple sustainable living. The main room of the house is 12′ by 16′ and the bathroom is just 6′ by 6′.
Tiny Adobe Casita
Three months out of the year this is the home of Samuel Gray. This adobe casita located near Abiquiu, NM and in just a few years will be Sam’s full-time residence. It measures 12′ by 10′ on the exterior but due to the thick adobe walls has only about 86 interior square feet. He built it for less than $3000 and it’s powered by a simple low cost photovoltaic solar system. Continue and read about this Adobe Casita in Sam’s own words. There are more photos too.
A Cob House You Can Build
Ziggy’s cob house at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is complete. He’s also posted a lot of detailed information about the construction process, cost, and sweat-equity required to build such a house on his Building a cob house blog. The house is about 200 square feet and includes a reciprocal roof and rocket stove. Ziggy estimates that it took about nine months of full-time work to build the house. His total cost was about $4000 but $1000 of that was labor so you could actually build this house for $3000 if you did all the work yourself. Take a look at Ziggy’s cob house, aka GOBCOBATRON.
How To Build Rammed Earth Walls
I was contacted recently by Michael Thompson a fellow I follow on Twitter, and a self-taught rammed earth expert. He and I share a passion for low-cost building techniques. He asked me to do him a favor and whip up a 3D drawing of his rammed earth wall former hat will serve as course material for his rammed earth workshops. It only took about an hour to draw it up. It’s amazing how simple the former is and how with some sweat equity dirt from a building site can be transformed into walls.
For £99 you can attend one of his 2-day rammed earth building workshops in Norfolk. You’ll learn about soil suitability, footings, design, ramming techniques, bond beams, window openings, and more. By the end of the class you’ll know what you need to get started on your own rammed earth shed or tiny house. Continue reading to see more views of my drawing, the SketchUp file itself, and a video that shows how it’s used.
Natural Homes
I really like the ingenuity of the fellow behind the website naturalhomes.org. This is the website dedicated to houses built from natural materials like cob, adobe, straw bale, stone, dirt, and so on. You’ll find examples of natural homes from all over the world. Some are big but many are tiny houses. Oliver Swann, the fellow behind the website, has been busy putting together all sorts of cool ways of exploring the world of natural and tiny homes. Here are a couple of good examples of what I mean.
Tiny House Map
Tiny House Slide Show
If you haven’t visited naturalhomes.org recently be sure to check it out. You might also want to follow naturalhomes on Twitter. I do and Oliver always posts good stuff.
