Outdoor Rammed Earth Floor

Joe woodall rogue ecoitect georgia adobe rammed earth homes tm 706 363 6453.

Outdoor rammed earth floor. A step by step tutorial on making an earthen floor sourced from a mix of materials such as clay sand and straw similar to cob and adobe. In the interests of learning a craft and also minimising the embodied energy of the building we really wanted to take the earthen route. Georgia adobe rammed earth renewable energy. The rammed earth floor is durable enough to withstand the antics of two active kids and yet comfortable for the adults in the household.

Rammed earth flooring as a technology had been used for hundreds of years however the research and development in modernizing the technology is still in its infancy. Despite not being scratch resistant these floors are easily repairable. After tamping down the earthen materials the floor almost has the look of a stained concrete floor. Said to have been used first in lyons france in 1562 rammed earth construction has a lot to recommend it.

Pc loves to hold onto water and this is why it will mold. In this video y. For those reasons terrell wong is a fan of the material and the method. It is usually constructed in modern times with a mixture of sand finely chopped straw and clay mixed to a thickened consistency and spread with a trowel on a sub surface such as concrete once dry it is then usually saturated with several treatments of a drying oil.

David easton author of the rammed earth house and owner of rammed earth works in california shares his earth floor building method in popular science. Our floor options as we saw them was to make either a poured concrete or earth floor. An earthen floor also called an adobe floor is a floor made of dirt raw earth or other unworked ground materials. A professional rammed earth home builder shares his methods for pouring low cost soil cement floors that are not only durable but also extremely handsome in appearance.

How to pour a rammed earth floor adobe floor. The green building benefits include low embodied energy recyclability high thermal mass low energy loads and non toxicity. The best material to use for keeping an earthern floor dry is magnesium phospate which is more expensive than pc but at the ratios needed for an earthen. Built with gravel sand clay straw and linseed oil it is made of local natural materials except for a plastic moisture barrier necessary in our area.