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2009-11-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

And so it begins.

2009-10-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well hello and welcome to my blog.
I would like to start with a little background, I am not a professional builder I have some skills and experience enough to know I should get as much help as I can in the planning stages of the concept so I am seeking a community effort in thinking this through.
I have very limited monetary resources and a large desire to live as green as possible.

Those who are familiar with Green and Alternative building should know of "Earthships" buildings made from tires layed out flat on/as foundations and walls, packed tight with earth in a brick like pattern.
This system relies on the weight of the packed tire (300 pounds or so) the brick pattern and the concrete chinking or filling the rounded spaces where the tires meet for it's strength. How ever this leaves you with a very thick wall nice for it's Thermal mass properties but I have a very small plot of land to work with and can't expend the land like that.

So now to the meat of it.
Every building needs foundations. Digging a trench 2 too 3 feet deep and laying down flat a two layer coarse of rammed earth tires.

Now here is where it starts to deviate, Corner points and ten feet (I am unsure as to the exact spacing needed/should have) from the corners are too have columns composed of tires packed with earth and using 2 inch screws connected at 4 too 6 points.
I will describe my envisioned method of assembling a column.
Lay tire flat on the foundation screw it into place pack it with earth lay the next tire directly on top of it screw it in place pack it with earth and so on to the desired height.

The connecting walls between the columns I plan on using tires, assembling them vertically parsay on edge.
Construction procedure as follows, on edge lay the tires on the foundation to the columns, Screw the wall tires too the foundation tires using 4+ screws.
Then connect the vertical tires too each other at all contact points and the columns.
The second row should I believe should be placed in the vally or dip between two tires. This will leave a half tire sized gap or so to the column i think this can be filled by taking a tire and cutting one side so it can open as a C shape and be compressed into the gap screwed and secured.
And repeat for a solid wall. Preplanning window and door placement you can fit in box frams of wood/metal with a lintel (a lintel is a slab that go,s into a wall above a gap so that the load above is transfered to the wall on ether side of the gap.) .

This leaves us with walls with a Whole lot of round holes. I plan on filling the holes and other misalanious gaps with "Slip straw" ( Slip straw is basicly straw soaked in a clay slurry called slip and compressed into bundles by hand

Building with tires

Oops! This link appears to be broken - www.usbg.gov/education/events/loader.cfm?

Building with tires

And so it begins.