Quote:
Originally Posted by bennelson
Just wondering if anyone has worked with this material before?
|
I knew a house built with a similar material...
Several times, I visited a house that was built in Mississippi, near the edge of the Gulf of Mexico.
The house was built from
rammed earth, which is a technique where raw earth, sourced on site, is put into a form, in place, and hand-powered ramming tools are then used to pound "until it rings".
The walls of the house were very thick, almost 18 inches, and provided a very comfortable coolness in the Mississippi summers. The motivation for that type of construction was the extremely low materials cost, though labor was considerably more expensive than 'standard' construction. At the time, because of the war, materials were hard to come by, but there was plenty of labor.
The house was built in the 1940s and survived every major storm, right up until hurricane Katrina... but then every house in that location was also totally destroyed. So, I would say that it held its own.
-AC_Hacker