Earth Bag Homes: How Easy is This

How easy is this, put Dirt in a Bag, stack neatly and repeat. Many, many times. Earth Bag homes, the simplest, low cost building technique around. But don't overlook one very important feature. Thermal mass, the leading reason people look to alternative methods of construction. To build a home that is cool in the summer and retains heat in the winter. Reducing the need for fossil fuel heat, or excessive electrical energy, which itself is generated most often with fossil fuels.

What happens every spring, the mighty Mississippi runs wild from snow melt, and the run off of spring rains. Public utilities, and the military madly fill sand bags to divert the rising flood waters from the homes, and businesses in danger of destruction. These simple polypropylene mesh bags, filled with sand act as dams to keep the mighty river in its place. The military uses dirt filled bags as shelter, and protection from incoming enemy artillery, and small arms fire.

Earth bag home construction makes use of the same basic bag filled with dirt to construct energy efficient, low impact housing. The basic steps include obtaining a source of moist soil, and suitable bags. Dig a trench as the perimeter of your building to a depth of about 6-8 inches with vertical walls. If your terrain is to sandy to maintain vertical walls in your trench, line the walls with wire mesh to prevent sand from filtering into the trench.

Fill the trench with small stone, broken bits of concrete, or washed 1-1.5" gravel. This will act as a way to prevent moisture from wicking up into the walls. Using mesh bags, 50# grain bags are a good choice, fill to about 3/4 full with soil. If maximum insulation value is desired a good alternative is crushed volcanic rock. This does add noticeable expense to the project, but it is lighter and will increase the R rating considerably. Dirt will do fine too, just throw another log on the fire in the winter months.