I dare to start a topic about my journey into the world of clay construction. Share experience, listen to advice
We are building two buildings in Sevastopol - a workshop and a house made of clay + straw + water, without formwork and with formwork, a monolith. Hereafter, this mixture will be referred to as cob(from English. cob), so as not to confuse it with adobe, because basically (in my experience) adobe is understood as home-made clay bricks.
The main reason for choosing this method is because I liked it. No calculations, scientific calculations, business cases I can’t imagine my choice, and there aren’t any. At the end of 2012, my wife and I saw a lot of pictures of their kob's buildings and decided to do the same because:
1. I really liked how the process and the end result look like
2. You can do everything yourself, without following the lead of the builders, who for some reason always know better than you what you need
We are not eco-maniacs, but that notorious "environmental friendliness" seems to be not superfluous.So, the following books were used as theoretical preparation:
David Reed
The Art & Craft of Stonework: Dry-Stacking, Mortaring, Paving, Carving, GardenscapingAdam Weismann, Katy Bryce
Building With Cob: A Step-by-Step GuideIanto Evans, Michael G. Smith, and Linda Smiley
The Hand-Sculpted House
A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob CottageCedar Rose Guelberth, Dan Chiras
The Natural Plaster Book: Earth, Lime and Gypsum Plasters for Natural HomesThe Forgotten Art of Building A Good Fireplace
Internetik.
On the this moment(12/23/2013) the following has been achieved:
Hard to see, of course.
Workshop irregular shape With internal dimension about 4.5 by 5.5 m, the walls are stuccoed to the roof. 6 monster beams for the earthen roof have been laid.
A plan has already been conceived for the house and a foundation has been made, which is more detailed if readers wish.
Cob houses are oldest species the construction of the building from a kind of building material - adobe - a mixture of clay and straw. Such structures have been preserved from the times of a thousand years ago. It was from adobe that the Egyptian pyramids were built and Chinese wall. Therefore, it is considered inexpensive, but very effective material for the construction of low-rise buildings.
What are the advantages of adobe houses
Since adobe is a completely cheap building material, which is a significant advantage over expensive artificial building materials, it is used quite widely in different regions. Cob houses are common in the Crimea, in the Kuban - in all regions with a temperate and warm climate. Therefore, among the advantages of adobe, the following can be distinguished:
- It has excellent thermal insulation. Saman retains heat well, which is especially important in winter period and in the heat of summer: in winter the house is warm, and in summer it is cool.
- The adobe is hygroscopic, which means that in an adobe house it will never be damp and humid.
- Adobe is an environmentally friendly product, since straw and clay are used for its production - natural materials can be purchased in an ecologically clean area.
- Saman is an earthquake-resistant material. Even with seismic movements of several points, adobe houses did not collapse.
- Saman is not afraid of fires because he does not burn.
- Buildings made of adobe are durable. They are in no way inferior to brick or wooden buildings.
How to make adobe yourself
First you need to prepare a solution of clay and sand, bring it to the desired consistency. Then add chopped straw to it (not too finely, otherwise the adobe will be fragile), if necessary, dilute with water. Form from the mixture , dry well. With the right ratio of components, the blocks are strong enough and easy to process.
What are the features of building a house from adobe?
First of all, you need to take care of the waterproofing of the building. To do this, you need to build the right foundation. It is best if it is monolithic - from piles, concrete. The plinth is made of brick. It is also necessary to carry out waterproofing on the basement cement mortar. Near the finished building, you need to build a blind area that will not waste water penetrate under the foundation and thus destroy the building or introduce moisture into the walls of the house.
Samany house - affordable, environmentally friendly housing
As already noted, adobe is inexpensive. Therefore, housing will be inexpensive. And if there are deposits of clay near your site, and cereals are grown in the field nearby, then the building material itself will cost you almost nothing. The process of production of briquettes also does not require special professional skills. This task can easily be done by two people. And the construction itself is also not difficult. Future owners often build adobe houses themselves. This process is slow. Admitted defects can also be corrected by yourself. At the same time, the field for imagination is unlimited. Your building can be one-, two-, or even three-story. Adobe is such a strong material that this option is also acceptable.
But the house of adobe, built with my own hands, will be especially comfortable and cozy for you. It will maintain a special microclimate.
Great option - light adobe
Today it is very popular among builders. residential buildings is a light adobe. This is the same adobe made of clay and straw. It is used in the construction of frame buildings as a filler. It is environmentally friendly, great strength, does not sag, saves good waterproofing, the atmosphere inside the building.
If this factor can be attributed to disadvantages, then it is dirt during the production of briquettes. Otherwise, adobe is not inferior to expensive building materials, which, among other things, are not always made from materials that are beneficial to human health.
Light adobe and heavy. What's the Difference?
Light adobe - these are briquettes made of rye straw in a clay shell. Heavy adobe provides for the use more clay. Light adobe cannot be used for bearing walls. Construction of light adobe provides for the presence wooden frame similar to regular Canadian. This framework is filled . Thus it turns out monolithic wall. To avoid bulging of the wall, they make a double-sided formwork: they cover the frame with boards from above and from the inside. When the wall dries, settles, the formwork is removed. The blocks keep their shape well, they "breathe", retaining heat perfectly. From above, the walls are trimmed at your discretion.
By following the requirements for all processes, you can build an inexpensive, strong and secure home in which more than one generation of people dear to you can live.
(expert Builderclub)Look. I cannot endlessly persuade you not to do as you want :-). I'll try again:
1. The belts I am writing about would be needed without straw, right. It’s just that this is what happens there: you have half a shell tied with belts, and two-storey house. Straw carries only itself, structures do not rely on it. On such a wall, ceilings can only be wooden beams. It is very difficult to make a screed (in which you want to put a warm floor) on the floor on wooden beams. You can, but with materials that you do not want to use. In addition, if the warm floor (under the heat carriers) is not insulated, then it heats not only your ceramic tiles, but also the screed, and all the layers under the screed (ground, for example). And that leads to more electricity bills. Here, look how such floors are solved. There are effective heaters, waterproofing, and so on. , - and these are all the materials that you would not like to use. And further. On heating with electricity and, as you write, "savings on radiators, boiler rooms and gas." Look, we recently did a calculation on the cost of different types heating, here. Heating with electricity is much more expensive, as a rule.
2. About fastening with a net and a solution of straw to the shell. It is unrealistic to attach two floors of straw like that. Straw will shrink differently than shells. And all this decoration will crack in all places of fasteners. You know what still bothers me a lot. In all the links you provided, there is NO information on which you can build, understand. It would be much easier for me to tell you, that's how it is written here, do it :-), but I can't! Nothing is written there related to the actual construction of what you want. There are slogans, theory, and advice. It is impossible to build on these materials. Talks and movies about what they say in Canada, Nebraska, stand for a hundred years, etc., are talks, nothing more. Schemes - conditional, calculations are incorrect, there are no numbers (and those that are, contradict each other). You do not want a one-story house, but a house with heating, two floors!
3. I will offer you an alternative option :-). To make a wall like this: half shells, perlite 5cm, half shells, plaster. In this case, there is also a belt along the top of each floor (on both blocks). Then, with such a wall, it will be possible to pour monolithic ceiling, and it's okay to make warm floors. True, to insulate a warm floor from below, I would still advise that it warms only what is needed. Perlite is such a backfill that is in no way inferior to straw in terms of ecology, warm - warmer(0.05 compared to 0.09). You can read more about perlite. During construction, the walls are connected with a masonry mesh between themselves. It turns out normal house, and seismic, and heat, and so on. The wall is about 43-45 cm (total thickness).
Write the dimensions of the house, we will be able to advise the sections of the rafter beams. And which one do you want roofing material. Then it will be possible to somehow estimate whether you "fit" in 15 thousand or not.
replyIf you own an old adobe house, do not despair, because in principle there is nothing terrible in the restoration. Knowing how to put everything in order, you can repair the old adobe house independently and without problems. In fact, an adobe house is, that is, unbaked raw brick, which, if possible, was lined around the perimeter with ordinary brick.
Where to start repairing an adobe house
Like any repair, it all starts with an inspection of the building, drawing up a work plan, estimates and purchases. the right materials. If you are not sure that you can carry out all the work yourself, then it is better, of course, to turn to qualified workers. The main elements of any residential building are the foundation, walls and roof, so we will consider everything in order.
Foundation
In adobe buildings, the classic was rarely used, that is, the walls of the house were erected on a compacted clay pillow. Or, in the variant of the adobe structure, they were hammered into the ground wooden poles which were subsequently coated with clay. When examining the building, if you see the presence of cracks on the walls, the difference in level window openings, then with a 100% guarantee we can say that the house has shrunk and it is necessary to repair the foundation under the walls.
Option to strengthen the foundation of an adobe house
To do this, trenches are dug along the walls, but not in a continuous strip, but with a step approximately equal to one meter and a depth of about 0.6 m. Waterproofing is done along the lower edge of the adobe blocks. Foundation sections are laid in problem areas (the easiest option, reinforced concrete or sand-cement blocks). After that, waterproofing is necessarily done around the entire perimeter and a blind area is constructed.
Walls and ceilings
One of the main problems is that after a long time the "belly" appears: irregularities and bulges appear on their surface. If such irregularities up to two centimeters in size, you can try to clean them up, and when there are more, it’s better not to risk it, but think about how you can cover them (in the case of a facade, you can use drywall inside).
Plaster adobe walls inside the house
During construction adobe houses all floors were mostly made of wood. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the condition of the floor beams and if they are in a deplorable state, they need to be completely changed. Of course, this is a large amount of work, since in this case it will be necessary to disassemble the roof, replace the entire piping and make new wooden floors.
Roof
The roofs of such houses used to be covered with what was at hand: from reeds to. When restoring an old roof, the first thing to start with is to inspect the entire wooden structure. If necessary, replace dilapidated elements and process the entire crate, for example, with mastic.
Before starting the repair of the roof, it is necessary to carefully examine all its elements.
If old roof tiled - it is advisable to replace it with a more lightweight material, because, having big weight, it creates an undesirably large load on the entire structure of the house.
When deciding to carry out a complete reconstruction of the building in the first place, never neglect the advice of specialists. Since out of ignorance you can cause irreparable harm to the entire building, which will ultimately affect your budget.
