Investing On A Rammed Earth House
Today, we are stuck in this wild ride of economic ups and downs that we have to be prepared for what’s next. These financial setbacks create even bigger problems when what only meager incomes could afford to purchase. Investing your hard-earned money into proper and more secured assets can afford even the average family a good future. With a house that will not be easily targeted as the termites’ warzone, we could make sure that our children will have a future where they will be happily enjoying.
When you know how to build a rammed earth house, you will also know how to provide for your family. Rammed earth is a building method used by masons in the ancient times and by people who live in areas that are scarce of lumber sources. With rammed earth, the house will be built with materials that are incombustible, very stable, and impenetrable by termites, hardwearing, thermally massive, strong, affordable and quite simple to make. Walls made of rammed earth contain raw materials such as lime, chalk, earth and gravel. Rammed earth is also known in other countries as pisé or pisé de terre (France), taipa (Portugal) or tapia (Spain).
There are abundant resources wherein one can find a good guide on how to build a rammed earth house. Perhaps one could first check some important details before starting to build your own earth dwelling. First, check your soil. You have to have the right kind of earth, which has to be about 50-70% sandy. It must not also contain too much clay or it will shrink and crack. Then, in order to create a homogenous mixture of earth, sieve it through slanted screen of about 1-inch mish of hardware cloth to separate chunks of earth and stones and other materials from your soil. Protect your soil from precipitation by covering it with tarpaulin as even 10% moisture will create a puddle on your soil and it will not compress well. Test your homogenous soil mixture by creating a ball of earth and dropping it. The ball should hold its shape well and scatter and break when you drop it. Finally, when you have all the necessary soil mixture of the right proportions of sand, gravel and clay (sometimes you can add a stabilizer), you and your builders can begin the process of compressing the damp mixture into externally supported frames that would form the earth into sections of your wall.
Creating a foundation of reinforced concrete is one of the modern variations that we could add to our earth homes. Sometimes these footings have added insulation made of a layer of Styrofoam. A good rammed earth house can be a very good investment for you. These dwellings are fireproof and it breathes, thus there is no need for air conditioning or heating devices. It has a very good thermal mass that it can heat up slowly during the day and releases that heat during the night. Also, it provides a good soundproof wall.