John's TEXT" Two days ago I made a long post regarding my experiments with burlap and a variety of
cement and non-cement materials. Here are some photos of the house I'm building with
burlap. Put away the hammer, and pick up the clothes-pin.
Here's a photo of the house before burlap: a ferrocement ring at the base, encasing steel studs, covered in stock panels. http://www.annesleyphoto.com/Building/ferroring7511.jpg
Here's the structure from another angle, partly covered in burlap-crete.
http://www.annesleyphoto.com/Building/burlap7516.jpg Here is a close-up of the coated burlap, held onto the stock panels with clothespins. The
seams blend together so well you can't really tell that you're looking at probably ten or more
seams. Makes a wall about as strong as 1/2" plywood over studs covered in stucco-- and its
only an overlapping layer of burlap soaked in modified fast set, high strength grout.
http://www.annesleyphoto.com/Building/clothespins7517.jpg
I kept a copy of the images in PDF, ( SHOWN ABOVE) but they are not on his website now.
I also know an artist- Michael Collins at www.biotectures.com- who made a 700' running foot privacy fence around a local Inn parking lot, and they converted it to a wedding and party center, with a wedding gazebo of free form sprayed papercrete onto more burlap and mesh with metal stakes.
As for rammed earth. there is a lot alot of work in it, and all it is as a big cube of dirt when all is said and done. easier to do bags filled
One man who built a large RE home in N. CA. told us he'd make his walls of ANYTHING, but not rammed earth again. He showed how pricey all the forms were ( when hiring a pro crew) the hydraulics for tamping all the planning, and details and they STILL have many voids and failed spots to rebuild. he said do a 'trash wall' and coat with clay. He said it was way too much work to just see the pretty rammed earth part on the inside ( maybe a faux 4" thick interior wall made with fine sands, colors, and tamped perfectly as wall art?)
then an adobe inventor from Berkeley, CA back in late '90s did the same thing-- independently.. he made a two running walls as the 'form'-- like the metal stake and wire mesh-- say 24" thick, and he put in junk -plastic milk jugs, cans filled with sand, trash and odds and ends, and then it was all packed solid he sprayed earth over it, and kept it up until the wall was as thick and smooth as he wanted. that was a garden wall, not a home,
But He proved how the Tire /earth ship method of using trash to fill in the space/voids was efficient, and gave a dense wall. Planning ahead for where to put "dead men" wood posts to hang cabinets, or picture in walls. or use the bond beam at the top with as the 'hanger'
