later in the day

if you look at the photo below this one you will see (above) what we accomplished in about 6 hours, three of us working.

The foundation and stem wall are done. Floor levels are compacted and leveled and are about 1.5" below final grade. The Cob walls started going up on 2 days ago

tamping the dirt in the bags

bag stand

above photo: this is gordon upon completion of the bag stand with the bag in place. ready to fill with dirt

more work

even gabriel gets in on the action.

working on the stem wall

a more comprehensive picture of what we are doing. this is a ton of work

gordon

gordon fry, from northern california. he has been here for the last 2 weeks or so. he is resting on the earthbag stemwall. these bags are sitting on ground level, right over the rubble trench. they are rice bags, filled with the same dirt excavated from the trench, mixed with 10% cement to stabilize the dirt and 20% water, then filled the bags, fold the bags shut and tamped into place. to lock the bags together on the horizontal surface we laid 2 rows of barbed wire to stop them from shifting.

ollie

olliver adams, "ollie" from london, he has been here for the last week or so. he is sitting above the rock "keys" to lock the stem wall to the future cob wall

sauna foundation

above photo is gabriel helping digging out the sauna foundation. this is made from cement bricks with lime/cement/sand morter. i did this to have smaller walls, for both the sauna and toilet area. for the rest of the house i used earthbag foundation.

you can see my first mistake here. i did not dig out the subfloor first. i then had to do it carefully when the stemwalls were there

filling the rubble trench

above photo is the foundation excavation. inside is a long piece filter fabric that is covering a three pieces of 2" inside diameter black tube made from HDPE, i drilled 1/2" holes into the tube almost everywhere to let rainwater flow through and out of the foundation

above photo is me filling the trench with large stones. i then covered this with small stones to the top

harvesting

collecting/harvesting stones by the creekside to fill the rubble trench for foundation drainage

above: less than a week later i have about 50% of the foundation trench dug. its only like 1 foot deep in most places, i will go deeper soon, to about 18-24", but i need this done carefully to create even and proper drainage. yesterday a neighbor helped me for 4 hours in the morning, and its amazing what 2 can do, its like 5x faster than just one worker (me)

this is just the start of a my most ambitious project yet. these white lines represent the foundation to our future guest house. the walls are 1.5 feet thick in most places and will be made of "cob" . the top left rectangle will be the sauna/bath, powered by a "rocketstove".
there is a little toilet/sink in the top right.
the center area will be a large bench, heated underneath by the rocket stove as well. and a kitchen/spectator gallery.
i have allready dug up 10% of the foundation. this is really tough work, all alone with a pickax and shovel
you cannot see it here, but the cottage is right next to our stream, including the hidden 6 foot waterfall!!!
the trail in the back leads up to the mountains