Hey guys,
Maybe you were noticing that lately I am not so active on SN. As you may know in the summer I am quite busy with building a small citadel (see first 2 parts here) in the middle of nowhere, deep into a mountain forest.
I am posting here some interesting updates and numbers about this (experimental) construction. Just for fun and for those interested into knowing more about this kind of construction. This is an exclusive content only for SN.
Recap
(if you do not want to read the whole story - see link above):
- is done by myself, alone, with my own hands, no heavy machinery, just basic tools (shovel + axe + bucket) and with basic materials that are plenty on site (wood, dirt, rocks) and earthbags.
- I want to see how far I can go with human effort, real PoW and using only my brain and imagination for the plans and construction method. I learn myself with "trial and error" method until I find the best solution. Not all those YT videos are true and not suitable for all types of environment. So please do not come with comments like "did you saw X and Y video on YT how they've done it?" because IT DOESN'T WORK! My situation is totally different than theirs and my plans are different.
- the construction was done during several years, hard fucking work, starting as a fun summer project but end up in a serious thing, with larger implications. This year I had also an accident with my finger and I couldn't work until July. Now I have plans to finish this small earthbags house, to be a place where to stay in good conditions a longer period of the year, and be able to start building the second house, bigger and better. But again with almost the same method, with earthbags. So all the knowledge I accumulated from this 1st house, will be used to make a 2nd one, much better.
This is the last picture taken of the construction site:
My plan was to have 21 earthbags rows on each wall, but because I have to put the roof with some lean inclination to the right side, for the water and snow to fall down, I will have to put 23 rows on the left wall and 20 rows on the right one. The roof will be fixed the left stonewall, pushing all those rocks and the gap between the house wall and the stonewall will be filled with more rocks and dirt. The whole roof (isolated against water leaks) will be covered with dirt for flowers (especially species anti-mosquitoes) and nice green grass.
What you see in this picture is only half of the house, the back side. The front side will be continued when I finish the roof on this backside part and will be done with a big nice window on the right side (where the sun enter all day long), a fireplace on the left side (is already started) and a nice stonewall in front with 2 windows and the door. The right side (where you see those rocks sitting in the grass) will be a nice parcel for strawberries and flowers, continuing up until on the roof.
Interesting numbers and fun facts:
- I dug the dirt, full of rocks and boulders, during 4 years (only few months in the summer)
- I used only a bucket to carry the dirt, like 10 m away and pilled up building a huge hill, separating the small/medium rocks from it and making a separate pile of rocks.
- see on the right side the pile of rocks and on the left side the dirt hill
- just imagine that each rock was extracted by hand, one by one from the dirt I dug and carried to this pile. Was a hell of work done!
- all these boulders you see here were dug up from that hill, by hand, no machinery
- each earthbag was filled up with filtered dirt from rocks, using an empirical filter :). Again the remaining dirt with rocks was carried back and used to reinforce and isolate the walls from the back of the bags, but most of it was pilled up in another place (for later use). A lot of moving dirt around. Actually my whole activity was moving dirt LOL 😂😂😂😂
- The house in total will be 7m by 3.5m and 2.5m height. The 1st part is 3.1m x 3.5m. Will have also a small porch at the entrance to sit on a big boulder / bench and watch the rain in the summer :)
- I calculated that I dug up like 15 tons of dirt and 5 tons of rocks. Like 2 big trucks.
- In the first 2 years I was counting (just for fun) how many rocks I extracted. At rock number 1523 I stopped counting because was insane... :)
- Each earth bag contain aprox 30kg of dirt
- Until now I piled up 298 earthbags, that means 8940 kg (almost 9 tons!!!) of dirt filtered and carried around
- I estimate to have like 15 000 rocks piled up, later to be used as pavement and walls.
- I still have to put like 100 earthbags on the right wall (under the windows) and a small part on the left wall next to the chimney.
- I still have to add like 3-4 tons of dirt+rocks around the house and on top, to isolate it nicely and make a rounded shape.
- Still remain to build the front wall with those big boulders. Will be a hell of job and I have no idea (yet) how will be done. But I think will be next year. I do not have time this year for the 2nd part of the house. I am in a hurry to put the half of the roof first, winter is coming and the earthbags must be covered and prepared for the winter and sun.
I hope you enjoy these facts and updates about my "little" project. In the end will be a nice and cozy hobbit house. Just need more patience and a lot of energy and effort to finish it.