Quote Originally Posted by Thunder View Post
I would think barbed wire would rip the snot out of the bags. It woul seem to be a good idea to keek them intact.
i suppose it would IF there was a major shift in the bags,but otherwise you are just nicking the bags with the barbs enough to hold them in place as the work progresses..

Quote Originally Posted by sorrow View Post
what about rain drainage inside.......

it looks to be sloped down into your shed.......

very inspiring.......!
oh its sloped, everything here is sloped.. lol. the back wall in the photo is about 4 feet high,so thats a 4 foot drop in 8 feet. and thats one of the flatter spots on the property..lol

because georgia clay is,,well,, clay,seepage isnt a problem here. this will be our third underground project here (again easiest way to build as we have NO flat spots). first was a sweat lodge,second was the root cellar and now this.
we have found that simply by digging a drain channel around the high side and down the sides,then covering the whole thing with a couple layers of 6mil plastic, making sure it lays in the drain channels before we cover everything with dirt is all that is needed to keep the inside dry.

the sweat lodge is now 6 years young and it doesnt leak a bit,root cellar is 4 years young and the same results..

Quote Originally Posted by heiwa View Post
My DH and I built a three room cabin last summer out of earth bags. Because we were building in Montana, we opted to use lava rock to fill the bags for added insulation. We were running out of time by October, so covered them in a mud/straw mix to see us through the winter. It worked well, but started to fall off when the Spring rains came (too much sand in the mix). This past week we started putting papercrete on the domes. It's been a wonderful project.

If we were to do it again, we would get the UV protected bags - the intense MT sun really does a number on them, and they were hard to keep covered while we were working (pesky wind up here). We have some pics on our blog: http://halcyontimes.wordpress.com.

Jen
awesome heiwa.. you just made my day and it hasnt really started yet.. :)

i LOVE the bee hive style.. is there a reason yall decided on the bags rather than the tubes?? if we were to ever do a bee hive structure i think i am leaning towards using the tubes..

would love to read your thoughts on this..