Would you live in a dirt house?

Here’s a trivia question you could pose to your friends. What is the most common building material in the world? You probably won’t have to wait very long for an answer. And that answer will most likely be wood. Through that big grin on your face you could then truthfully tell them the true answer is dirt. The very soil we walk on, garden in and spend lots of money cleaning off of our cars, our clothes and our bodies.

For centuries on end, earthen construction has been the popular choice, and in some parts of the world, the only choice. The use of earth as a building material is actually far more sustainable than wood, drywall or even concrete.

Earthen construction advocates cite many virtues over conventional construction such as: very low environmental impact, high thermal mass, permeability, low-energy building methods, universal availability, and it’s ‘dirt cheap’. In most cases it is non-toxic depending, of course, where you dig it up from.

Another benefit of its use is that it breathes. Its permeability and ability to absorb and release moisture makes for a very healthy indoor environment.

So why haven’t we seen more of this type of abode sprouting up in our ‘burbs? Quite simply put, Labor Costs.

The construction industry is very heavily driven by the ability to build as many and as quickly as possible. The basic techniques involved in building earthenware homes does not lend itself to the typical cookie-cutter piece-together prefab building technique of today’s modern builder. I read someone who said ‘this class of architecture has often been referred to as the housing of choice for the idle rich and idle poor’. When considering building earthenware structures the only people with lots of time on their hands can feasibly do it. And even if you had lots of time, you couldn’t build them in urban or suburban settings due to housing codes.

There are several ‘non-traditional’ forms of housing that have met with varying levels of success throughout history. The most notable being the adobe house. You can find many adobe homes throughout the American southwest. Here is an example of an adobe house built near Santa Fe, New Mexico. As is common practice with modern adobe homes, the architect, Mark Chalom, also incorporated the Pressed Block and Rammed Earth techniques to make this home a little sturdier.

Pressed Block is the second most popular method, the most notable difference from adobe is that a drier mix of earth is used with a stabilizer such as cement. The mixture is loaded into a press machine, typically hand operated, and building blocks are then formed. Using a mechanical device to compress the earth would yield higher-density and more uniform blocks.

Rammed Earth construction has been adopted to multi-storey earthen construction. This technique is most commonly used in China and France. Rammed earth uses wooden or metal forms for the skeletal structure and then a cement stabilized earth mix is poured in and compacted by pounding with hand tools or with a mechanical compactor. Metal rebar is often added to further increase strength. This method opens itself for the adding of different kinds of earth or mineral compounds to each layer creating a decorative striated layers of colors resembling sandstone. A main advantage to Rammed earth over Adobe blocks is its higher strength and higher insulation value. This photo is of the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Center on the Osoyoos Indian Reserve in British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

There is a great blog called Rammed Earth is for Everyone. Check it out for ideas and some more beautiful examples.

Super Adobe is a recently introduced technique of architect Nadar Khalili and Cal-Earth Institute. It’s origins are in both Middle Eastern earth building techniques and the earth bag building methods. Earth bag construction is very strong and can be built very quickly. It has evolved from military bunker construction techniques, and temporary flood-control methods. This method involves laying down successive layers of sandbag tubes filled with a cement stabilizing earth or sand mix to form the walls and each coil is locked to those below it by coils of barbed wire. Super adobe offers great reduction in construction time and labor and is therefore a favored method of constructing emergency shelters.

Straw bale construction may at first seem out of place on a list of earthenware construction techniques but the stacks of straw bales are covered in a mesh lathe and then plastered with adobe. The stacks of straw is ‘nailed’ in place by long metal pins, and load bearing walls must have heavy wooden, steel, or concrete posts standing upright between them, or concrete is poured into holes drilled through the bales, in order to support beams. These buildings offer high insulation and fast construction. As you can see from the photo, you would not be able to tell that this house is made from straw and adobe.

So, if you want to build a new house with cheap, readily available materials just look beneath your feet. And sit back and dream what you could with all that money you will save without a house payment.