Hi diy/,
havent been here in a while.
Does anybody have experience with clay buildings?
So far i know:
>largely avaiable
>Keeps wood dry and prevents mold
>keeps room humidity at 50% constantly
>has to be protected from rain and storm
>can have a green roof
>hobbits i guess
Unfortunately the laws and regulations concerning clay are kind of flimsy. A friend of mine wasnt even allowed to build a wooden hut. Looks like they want to protect building businesses from amateurs experimenting and doing shit on their own.
Id really like to test this though and get creative with it.
>>949725
Depends on where you live. As long as you can prove its safe, structurally sound and meets all the code requirements you shouldn't have a problem. Out here we have people building with unreinforced cob, straw bales, all kinds of shit. They built them with permits though. Not many places that require permits are real big on you doing shit without them. Its mostly a property tax thing. They can't tax you for it if they don't know you've built it. That said, most places have a permit exemption if its under a certain size. At that points its a shed or an outbuilding and not a real structure and code does not apply.
>>949734
My longterm plan was getting experience with that kind fo stuff and build an actual house to live in. So i'll have to do the legal stuff. But maybe i'll leave Europe and live in some 3rd world shit in the hope i can do whatever i want there.
>>949738
What do you mean clay building? Making a whole house out of unglazed clay that holds rain? How does that work? Here on brazil you can do whatever you want.
>>949774
Yes there is to be a kind of coating or roofing to rpotect it from weather but it is unglazed and unburned.
There are several techniques, making a basket with sticks and coating it with clay (africa style)
Or making clay bricks (unburned).
Or stomping clay in layers and raise walls that way.
Watch this guy for example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4pn1LITatc
>>949775
Okay, just a bit of free advice don't use the basket method. I don't know where you live but here it can serve as habitat for a sort of bed bug that gives you chagas (very not nice disease that damages internal organs). I only saw these methods you describes in areas with little to none rainfall. Here most houses are made with glazed clay bricks covered with mortar. You can use red clay to paint walls though. My dad (architect) once painted a house with a local ,very red, clay.
>>949789
Thanks for these :)
>buy/build pic related (aka cinva ram press)
>get some good dirt
>mix with cement
>press it
>almost free bricks for your nice and cheap house
I've watched quite a lot of videos about cob and also read a book called The Cob Builder's Handbook or somesuch. I can't really recommend the book though because while being somewhat educational I seem to recall it's just so shittily written. Infact there are no comprehensive yet concise videos on the subject that I know of, either.
So, you mix clay and sand with a fibrous material like straw (not hay) and sometimes even maneur to bind it. When you make bricks out of it it's called adobe.
Most interesting to me in my cold climate would be strawbale houses which can be made with a loadcarrying wooden frame, or with the "nebraska method" (iirc) wherein the actual bales carry the roof. With the latter method you need to compress the bales before adding any load to the walls though or it'll set something fierce. Once the bales are in place you plaster the whole thing either with lime or earthen plaster (clay). I believe lime plaster is the superior choice for longevity, but you lose hippie-cred.
Supposedly, even strawbale houses are very fire and rot-resistant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqP_UAgxBKQ one of the higher-credibility videos I can think of right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXmAwx8Imxw real cool.
Wattle-and-daub is a variation where you slather your "daub" (clay) on your "wattle" (latticework of reeds or thin sticks).
What they always stress is that you want a lot of roof overhang and a high foundation to avoid getting rainsplash on your walls, since cob is pretty much water soluble. Lime plaster helps.
This method of building has an obvious appeal as the results are almost always cool and unique as fuck with reliefs carved into the plaster, visible ceiling joists, thick walls (deep window recesses) etc.
I get the feeling quite a lot of this stuff is overhyped. They make it sound like the average redbull-chugging millennial can just up and build a luxurious 1k sqft mudhut over a summer debt-free but THE MAN is hiding this info from them.
>>949956
>but you lose hippie-cred
kekeroo
I think the reason behind the overhyping is that building companies are notoriously untrustworthy scammers, at least here in Germany.
So they build you the cheapest house for the highest possivble price.
If you want any kind of extraordinary design it surpasses their planning capacities and they will make it unreasonably expensive and/or fuck it up.
Actually when you want to do clay buildings with a company its so expensive that its a prestige thing round here. That may fuel the hype.
Further on concrete is an environmental issue.
The rectangular standard house is not appealing to people who are aware of the "feng shui" like aspects of architecture (im talking about, shapes, lighting, proportions). I like the temperature and humidity and mold suppressing properties.
The people who think about that stuff arent the redbull chugging millenial in my experience.
Ok, maybe there are one or two..
hows a pile of mud going to stop mold and keep wood dry
whats wrong with you
>>950002
not sure if trolling or in need of explanation
The cost of a small structure shell isn't usually big money, but amateurs are fascinated with shells and "exotic" materials.
How about choosing what has worked in your particular part of the globe for centuries? Alternately, there is always concrete, offering choices from block to poured to poured ICF.
If a house is too expensive, the problem is money, not the house . The expense relative to income is merely a symptom.
Pursue money and you are set anywhere. If poor, you are fucked anywhere.
