Most of us cannot slap down hundreds of thousands of dollars on a second home or survival shelter without putting ourselves behind the financial eight-ball, at least for a time.
If you are in that boat, carefully considering alternative construction methods is one way of getting what you need at a relatively low cost without sacrificing the integrity of your structure or the quality of the building materials.
One such method is to build with earthbags.
Building with earthbags is one method of construction that merges military bunker, adobe, brick and mortar and cement block techniques with modern construction methodologies to create a sturdy, affordable and “low-tech” way of building a structure.
Earthbags are filled with, well, earth (or sand or gravel) and are relatively eco-friendly and if you follow standard protocols for construction, durable, naturally insulated and easy to maintain.
On the next page, we cover why building with earthbags might be right for you.
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what happens when the baggs rott and then what
You have an earthen home. Norse and Vikings used them very often.
Hippie garbage aside this does seem fairly useful. At least as a temporary to get a real external Support similar to modern military Walls up. They figured out a while ago bags take s lot of effort that can be otherwise used. I don’t think this was written by a homesteader as much as it was by a California commune pr campaign
The earth stays together.
That’s called a “bunker”
I see the window header is sagging already! Terrible idea
Where am I supposed to poop?
what happens if one gets ripped and all the sand comes out? can you replace it or does that side get weakened?
I would feel the need to drive rebar in them at 24″ on center.
that is interesting, I can see plastering the inside and outside will also enhance the appearance.
Jimmy Brinkley
Patrick James Flagg
Yep, the headers over the door and windows somehow got left out !
Fill up more bags with it, then use them to build an outhouse.