Posted in progress on July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Up until now, most of the rammed earth walls have been tarped…. This is the first time we’ve exposed all the walls at the same time……
It’s finally starting to look like a house!
This is the massive Glu-Lam Header above the garage door…. it carries a lot of load from the deck/roof above the garage.
This is [...]
Posted in progress on July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Here we are getting ready to place beams over the windows, the garage door, and on top of the rammed earth walls (to connect everything together).
These are the posts in the corner of the 2nd bedroom…. they carry the load over the doors and windows that face the courtyard.
This is the header above the stairway:
… Here [...]
Posted in progress on July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
….. here we are stripping the formwork from the walls on either side of the garage door
We continued the mountainscape colour scheme across the front of the garage so that as you approach the house the walls would appear seamless……
here’s a closer look:
….and this is the view from the steps as you leave the front [...]
Posted in progress on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
…..formwork almost ready for the 2 walls on either side of the garage door.
here we are delivering soil to one of the walls on the right side of the garage door… while the boys erect more formwork for the entrance way columns.
We’re using one set of forms to build 2 columns at the same time…… and [...]
Posted in progress on July 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
here is the formwork before we stripped it apart
…this is the East side of the wall….(inside the house)
…and here’s the West (from the outside)
Posted in progress on July 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This is Mike forming the wall that will be next to the staircase. We plan on having Mike surgically removed from the wall before final inspection!
here is the wall as seen from the outside…..
… to the left of this wall section there will be a 2 story tall window to light up the stairs.
…to the [...]
Posted in House #1 Progress Reports on July 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
..after successfully experimenting with various colours and patterns we decided to incorporate a mountainscape design into the long garage wall.
Watch it unfold!
As you walk up the stairs to the main entrance, this wall will be on your left.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Ramming the far corner wall…
Stripping off the forms…..
Revealing the wall….
…. a thing of beauty!
This wall has the electrical boxes already installed.
We will pour a smooth window sill later on.
The threaded rods at the top of the wall are to secure the recycled wooden beam that will encircle the top of the walls for strength.
The colours are [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The damp mixture of soils, cement and water is placed inside the formwork on both sides of the insulation, and is then pneumatically rammed until fully compacted.
Our insulation is made out of recycled mine tailings and slag. It is non-combustible, water repellent, fire resistant and sound absorbent.
Our RE walls meet the standards for seismic movement and thermal resistance. (R-20)
As [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Rammed Earth walls are made using re-usable formwork, much like regular concrete.
The big difference is that with normal concrete formwork, steel through-ties are used to keep the formwork from flexing when the wall is poured — these steel ends are later broken off, but are still visible. Our RE walls are made without using any [...]
