Earthbag Building Blog

The driving factor behind this project is the belief that simple
design is high design, particularly when working in the developing
world.

For the Love of Earthbags (F.L.O.E.) is an interactive design project

that aims to prove that it’s possible to approach high-design in a
manner that is tasteful, modern, and groundbreaking by using only the
most basic materials, such as the dirt beneath our feet.

This project is an initiative led by architect Travis Hughbanks and

supported by Edge of Seven (www.edgeofseven.org) in partnership
with the local community of Basa, Nepal.

Edge of Seven is a nonprofit organization that generates awareness

and volunteer support for projects that invest in education, health and
economic opportunity for girls in developing countries. According to
the World Bank, 30 percent of Nepalis live in poverty and this
population is most concentrated in rural areas where people survive
off of agriculture and subsistence farming. For Edge of Seven,
earthbags offered an opportunity to improve rural educational
infrastructure and combat poverty in the most low-cost, efficient and
sustainable way possible.

How will the funding be spent? The money raised through this
campaign will be used for supplies to create the earthbag school,
educational tools, and the production of the graphic materials.

F.L.O.E.’s end goal is to elevate the practice of earthbag construction

by producing several engaging and creative educational materials that
will be used both to promote earthbag construction and teach local
residents how to build with this method. The materials to be produced
are an animated video and a graphic print manual.
To read more about this innovative project and see more of their
interesting graphics check out this website: www.indiegogo.com

We have profiled the Nepali school project on several other posts:

finished-earthbag-school-in-nepal
earthbag-building-spreads-in-nepal
earthbag-school-in-nepal

Today I want to talk about passive cooling strategies for keeping your
home cool in hot climates. This is a very hot climate and yet our
earthbag roundhouse is about 15 degrees Fahrenheit cooler inside
than out. So 15 degrees Fahrenheit, 8 degrees Celsius temperature
difference with no mechanical cooling systems. No air conditioners, no
fans, no anything. It’s just passive strategies, natural strategies for
keeping the home cool without the use of machinery or electricity. So
we’ll discuss about 11 different strategies that you can use. They’re all
very low cost and simple.

The first one is the color of your wall — your exterior wall. You want the
walls to have a light color so they reflect sunlight. One of the most
important things is to have wide roof overhangs. This is about 4 feet, a
little over one meter. So the sun almost never hits the wall. Because
they’re high mass walls, if the sun hit the walls frequently, that mass
would heat up and eventually that heat would transfer inside. So we
keep the sun off the walls as much as possible.

Another important strategy is windows. We have casement windows

that swing open and catch the prevailing breezes. So the breezes
come from this way and these are like a scoop — a wind scoop — to
pull the wind into the roundhouse. We also have windows on all sides
of the house so the breeze is always blowing through.

If you look up above the window, we have screened openings above

the windows that keep insects out, but let hot air escape this way. I
don’t know if you can see it, you might want to come closer. Above the
bond beam is a gap of a few inches. In between the rafters there’s a
gap where hot air can escape. So the hot air is rising and it goes out
the top. Also we use thatch roofing and some air passes through the
thatch. We also have one of these screened openings above the door
as a transom.

Let’s go inside and I’ll show you the earth coupled floor. This is our
earth coupled floor right here. What that means is the floor — the high
mass floor — in this case concrete, but it could be tamped earth,
stone, CEBs, brick, recycled brick, whatever. The floor is in direct
contact with the earth underneath with a moisture barrier to prevent
wicking of moisture. So the floor is absorbing the coolness of the
earth. It’s very cool, surprisingly cool even in this hot climate where
you can start sweating in just a few minutes. So this is surprisingly
cool. We also have earthen plaster on the inside. All that mass and this
mass partition wall [and earthbags] all absorb the coolness of the
earth — the coolness coming up from the earth. And the breezes help
all the hot air escape. So the temperature inside stays the same night
and day. You don’t need an air conditioner or even a fan. It’s
surprisingly comfortable in here.

Some other strategies — you want to look up and see the high ceiling,
so there’s plenty of space for hot air to rise and escape. There you can
see the gap above the bond beam to improve ventilation.

The last strategy I’m going to talk about is vegetation — using plants
to keep the building cool. Here we’ve used a mango tree on the hot
southwest side of the house. That’s the hottest direction. We have
different plants here. So the sun, as you can see, almost never hits the
house directly. And also we have a very large tree above here that
protects and shades the house through most of the day. Again, these
are all simple, low cost strategies that anyone can do. Very low cost,
very simple. You can save a lot of money on energy bills and also help
the environment.

Almost 100 videos at Earthbag Natural Houses YouTube channel.