How to Make Compressed Earth Block
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- Опубліковано 18 гру 2020
- In this video I talk about the process of making compressed earth block. I show you the machine that I used to build my house. I will show you the machine and how it works. The machine is shown in action. I also go over the steps and important principles to follow in making your own block. By watching the process of making block this should help in clearing up some questions on "How to make compressed earth block." There are probably lots of ways to do this, in this video I show you the process that I use to make block.
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incredibly educational video... potentially the best I've seen
So great to see. I’m surprised more you tube preppers and homesteaders don’t use this technology. There are manually compressor machines available that will pay for themselves quickly. Loved the video.
Thanks for watching!
I agree especially because these houses are tornado proof when built properly and bullet proof, not counting windows and doors. Also, think about other uses such as retaining walls and for homesteaders, chicken coops, loafing sheds, hog housing, fencing for small animals, raised bed gardens, etc., etc., etc. The list of uses goes on and on. In third world countries where water wells are hand dug, these bricks could not only make housing but also line the hand dug water wells as long as they have the higher concentration of cerement. You could even make s spiral staircase coming out of the hand dug water well. I am certainly considering buying one of these machines but I wonder if there is a market for the bricks once I have built the things that I want for my property, and what the going price is per brick or per brick pound, or if I would just have to sell the machine back to the manufacture.
I wanted to address your question directly. These machines sell for about $120,000 to $140,000 new and $65,000 to $75,000 for 18 year old machines that have made hundreds of thousands of blocks. That's just for the compressed block machine itself and not counting the tractor with a front end loader, rear tiller, Portland cement, purchased soil, as most soils don't fit the needed ratio of clay to sand, pallets for stacking and drying, etc., etc., etc. But yeah, they would make great prepper abodes as they are almost bullet proof bunkers that will maintain a comfortable temperature most of the time. Another difficult thing with these houses is that they must be planed better than most conventionally built homes. When dealing with earthen blocks vs. 2x4s and sheet rock (think forgiving), you must make completely detailed plans for everything electrical and plumbing as compressed earthen blocks are not so easily dealt with when not planned for in the original architectural drawings. All of that said, I want one! Just think of the other uses such as retaining walls, barns, loafing sheds, raised bed gardens, fences for a cuy farm, etc. etc.
@@odiswhite8429 Thank you.
Most prepers use homemade molds and a hand powered hydraulic jack or jacks.. Unless you're going to go into the brick making business. This is a big expense
Thank you!!! I have this machine from Dan in New Mexico. I got the best results from 40 clay, 50 sand, 10 Portland.
Thanks for sharing
Absolutely fabulous, I've got millions of questions. I'll be sending an email. I don't even have my land yet, but I can't wait to get started. I love, Love, LOVE the open floorplan. Great job to you and all those that contributed. :)
Thanks for excellent explanations about how to make mudbricks. Clay sand ratio explanations is amazingly useful. Thanks a lot for sharing everything in details 🙏
Love the idea of building a traditional brick house using these blocks!
Nicely done! Thanks.
Deanna and I are fortunate with the mixing. The Hydraform Ex has a pan mixer for doing this. Great video, Brother! Blessings to you and Your Family!!
Awesome! Thank you!
Good work.
Thanks for sharing. 👍🏼
Best video seen till now
thank you for your kind words
Very educational
I’m impressed.
Well done my friends
GREAT EFFIN VIDEO!
Amazing video! Finally some practical, by the numbers information about making these.
Thank you and god bless :)
Glad it was helpful!
What would happen
if you fired these in a kiln?
What's the expected longevity
of these rammed earth bricks?
Do they have insulative characteristics
like earth?
Great idea.
Ok, so this will be completely random, but I’m writing a zombie apocalypse story, and part of it will be the rebuild after the dust settles. 😹😹😹 this looks like a much more feasible option than traditional brick, so thank you for the info!
Such an original idea + +
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Awesome Content! 🎉
How can I use caliche in the mix?
Thank you ❤
If anyone is looking for clay type material...find the local quarry. Always an option as well if your material on your property fails.
Thanks for the tip.
You did an excellent job discussing the process of making Stabilized Compressed Earth Block. This was the down to earth; this is how I did it, without the technical jargon. Did you use a conventional slab at your house?
Yes we just did a traditional slab, set aside the footing which is not tradition, 24" x 24"
110%
Sweet
Sir I had one question,
Can we use this blocks in a cyclone resilient shelter...like does there hold increases or will they be more stable on the ground rather than the concrete.as affordability is also an issue.
Great video, thank you for sharing. What machine did you use? Is it the BLM-12-8A3 Block Maker from EarthTek? Is it worth looking for a used machine or new is best? Thank you in advance, really appreciate you.
Nie clip, much thanks. Love the rammed earth/earth block plan, but wonder why use an earth block - better than regular block or brick?
Thank u so much now I can build a house as a poor lady with no roof
I love it, I think this is truly fantastic. But to be honest, in my humble opinion, concrete is still the best way.
I concur but I could get a considerable cost savings if you only use concrete blocks in most important section
Concrete is horrible for the environment, has high carbon foot print, has zero insulation property
is very ugly aesthetically and pretty expensive, but hey who am I to argue if people think that MacDonalds is the best burger in the planet.
@@robford3211 I don't think Mcdonald's is the best burger on the planet. But being an architect I'll tell you you are wrong about concrete. It is not ideal, of course, I'd rather use stone if I could all the time, but concrete is amazing. First off, regarding the footprint, the longevity of the concrete makes it actually less of an emitter than many other alternatives. It isn't on pair with rammed earth, but as we all know rammed earth has its limitation. There is no 20 storey building made of rammed earth. As for the insulation, we all know it is not to be used alone, but in conjunction with other insulative materials. Wooden houses in my opinion are one of the least environmental materials. In Canada and USA you can imagine how many trees have been cut in order to make these limited life span housing that will need to be replaced on average after 50 years. During these 50 years, you'll need to prepare it many times, replace the flooring, roof construction, etc. You have to take into account having this shorter lifetime and many repairs you will need to spend fuel for those who will come to repair it, which is way more than for some other types of buildings with better longevity. Tools used in construction have also a lifespan, they can last for decades, but eventually, you'll need to replace them. Now think how much of those more you need to manufacture because the rate of amortization is higher. Concrete is safer if done right, for seismic reasons. If done properly it offers great stability and longevity, ease of modeling, and therefore practicality and function. Some older buildings made with prefabricated concrete are still in good condition after 70-80 years, with proper maintenance. I would, if I couldn't afford stone, use concrete.
I wonder if you mixed in a little super plasticizer could you reduce the water making the block stronger?
thats boss your making the block to then make your own house, wich i think more people should be doing. i think it would be cool to do this somehow without the store bought mix and a handmade machine or one that anybody could afford. or heck even by hand with a large mold that would let you fill multiple forms at one time.
If you have too much sand, could you add more Portland to compensate?
Wow! Sounds very time consuming and tricky to get it right.
do these blocks hold up under the rain? I was watching another homesteader, and they were doing a similar concept except they were also firing their bricks.
Nice video! Only thing is that 10:1 doesn't equal to 10% 90% but to ~9% ~91% (not a big difference, still close). I wonder if there are ways to do it but without much machinery (a cheaper option)
Yes, it is called a hoe and shove, with a hand press. Even with the machines it is not easy work.
Open top form and a manual soil compactor will make blocks no problem. It's literally a steel plate on the end of a stick.
Compressed earth walls, are done with form boards. Good luck.
A 10 percent mix would be a 9 to 1 ratio, not 10 to 1 ratio
Exactly
No it wouldn’t, it would be a 13 to 4 to 5 ratio
Should be measured out as such. 32.5 clay 52.5 sand with 15% Portland cement. AND you be happy you did.
Also 60% clay 40% sand Is 100% but they use cement as well so how many percent do they use
@@benanderson3041 I'm assuming they meant 55 35 10
Will the final block be stronger if you bake it after the compression?
thank you, liked to watch
Can one use Lime in place of Portland? And, would the % remain the same?
Thanks
Can you use Sorrel cement?
8:07 I'VE GOT A JAR OF DIRT!
WAit a minute... is that percentage by volume? Hydrated clay is way bigger than dehydrated clay.
Add the cement to the water..... It is easier to get a uniform mix
Does this house use more or less cement than a concrete house? I know there is less portland per block but the blocks wouldn't have the same strength and so you would need wider blocks. So it would be a 10" wall vs a 6" wall. I know the old 2' wide stone walls used more cement than a modern 6" concrete wall. Concrete blocks are also hollow so they save on cement that way. So while I do like the sound of earth blocks, I am having trouble imagining a reason to use them.
So the advantage is CEB would basically compare to a traditional Adobe wall with a higher PSI strength. This would give you the benefits of a large thermal mass with some improvements for earthquakes, higher moisture area's, more flexible architectural options, less mortar in the joints, and overall less water used during the project. Also a faster dry/cure time. Otherwise CEB would get most of the benefits of Adobe. High thermal mass, fire resistance, insect resistant, noise dampening and depending on how bad the neighborhood is bullet resistance ;) Hope this helps.
What could be the problem if the blocks are coming out bruised from the mould?
Can this type of bricks be fired too?
You're up in north AZ right? I currently live in chandler but been looking into doing homesteading for quite some time but the biggest obstacle I'm hitting is job availability. If you don't mind me asking, how do you make enough income when living way out there.
Honestly it is difficult, you are right jobs are very limited and where I live people are very tight with their money, (nothing wrong with that) so it makes it difficult to endeavor in entrepreneur adventures, which is what we do. We are blessed to be debt free, we work really hard to live within our means and we do a lot of repurposing to sustain our life style. Trust me, we have been tempted to leave this area and go somewhere where there are more job opportunities. At this time and with the current events we are happy to be where we are at and stand and lift where we are at. I tell all my friends and family to work really hard to become debt free, in todays standards that is almost impossible without changing some lifestyles. I don't subscribe to everything what Dave Ramsey says, but I have adopted and morphed his thought process when he says "live like no other, so you can live like no other." Over all, I am always trying to improve in this area. When I went to Wyoming this last summer to assist with wild land fires I made a lot of money, so I may do more of this for a few months out of the year to carry us over each year. I am continually looking to find passive incomes for me and my family so we can continue this lifestyle. Over the past few years, I have been changing the way I look at employment, I used to do the 9-5 thing for many years, now I am working on trusting in my abilities and seize opportunities when they come. Basically I am relearning to embrace life again. Sorry if this got too preachy or philosophical. Hope this helps.
@@SustainableLiving Not too preachy at all, in fact it was an enjoyable read. I wish you well in your endeavors and hope it works out. Love the content and channel btw!
Did you have problems with getting a consistent block size? I found that when there is less moisture the blocks come out more consistent but still having about 1/8” difference. Was this a problem for you guys?
Yes our block size did vary in length what we found was depending on how fast I dropped the material into the hopper of the machine then it would bottleneck and would not let the full flow of the dirt once the slide was completely opened to load the dirt. This in turn would affect the size of the block. We were never too worried about it because we were always looking for different sized blocks 2 fill in any gaps once the course was finished. We did try to slowly load the hopper and that seemed to help us and getting a more consistent size block. And that would make sense if you had more moisture in it and it would bottleneck and bind up. Also we would try to let the dirt flow naturally into the Press if you have someone constantly pushing on the dirt or using the end of a shovel to poke the dirt down into the hopper that would always create a compaction issue so we would always tell our helpers to just let it flow naturally and not try to assist. Hope this helps good luck thanks for watching
Always check ✔️✅ ratio of clay to soil before adding hardening ingredient.
I like a 70/30
what do you use to mortar them together? same mix?
I use the same material that I made the block with and sifted down to a finer mixture, then made it into a pancake like mixture. If you have not seen it yet I did make a video about this:
ua-cam.com/video/23MTZuq6bec/v-deo.html
What regions of the US can you use these blocks,,I'm in the southeast
Is it as good as hemp blocks
USA
Wyndmoor PA
I have a question! To make a 14 "/ 12" / 5 "block, how many tons of pressure do I use? Please
Well I am not an engineer, but the machine we used pressed our blocks to 1700 psi (per square inch), and our blocks were 12 x 9 x 4 inches, hope this helps
@@SustainableLiving ok what happens is that I want to make the machine myself and I'm trying to know how much power I need, thank you very much for your help, I like your videos
Hi. I'm a BTech student of final year and I'm doing a project on soil stabilised earth blocks reinforced with Coconut fibres and Jute fibres seperately and verifying their results. But I just need to know that how to dry these blocks oven dry or drying at room temperature?
dry a room temperature
We used to do this by hand? Without cement?
Hello
Do you still have this machine?
I’m looking to buy a used one.
Please let me know. Thank you
“Linear ball” lol never heard that before!
Sure you have, an American foot ball
@@SustainableLiving Things like that, or an egg are "spheroids"
@@_Nibi :)
When the blocks are cured up, how vulnerable to water are they? How do they compare structurally against an unfilled cinderblock?
I'm in Mexico right now and the house my wife grew up in is adobe. No load on blocks thatched roof of palm leaves with a support beam run for Ridgeline. The walls are coated in lime. The house is probably over 100 years old and still used. I first saw it 20 years ago and it looks the same. Keep it dry that is the key.
@@johnowens5342 That is very helpful, thank you. I think I could make it work for what I want if I can protect it from the rain. I have a lot of clay in my backyard in a place I don't want it, so this would be solving two problems a once, if it becomes feasible to build with.
10 scoops dirt to 1 scoop portland is a 9.09% mixture. 9 parts to 1 is a 10% mixture
Is there any place I can rent one of these machines?
Sir I am interested in making interlocking bricks
I am designing a machine which similar to manual machine but I want to upgrade it by hydraulic system
Now can you suggest me hp of mortar and pump
The block size will be
9 ×4×3 inches 2 nos
My company GLOBAL HEALTH AND HABITAT SERVICES INC. a global initiative to improve health and affordable housing availabilty, will be interested in a machine like that when it is made. To build models in the south west USA and other warm parts like Texas, Georgia etc. to start with.
WHAT TYPE OF CLIMATE IS NEED FOR THE BLOCKS???. I LIVE ON THE EAST COAST OF CANADA ..
great idea to use stabilized earth blocks but the issue most people how are wanting to do this can afford spending 50-65K for a hyd press machine and the hand machine are just set up to fail taking to long to make enough block
can these machines be rented or leased?
Thanks, What about water?
Where do you get the machine.... And how much is it
if you want to make a tiny dirt ROCK, heres a tutorial
1. grab a pvc stick, firm piece of stick, or something thats hard to break and firm.
2. *optional* grab a trowel or small shovel
3: start digging out a hole, make it as big as you want, the bigger the better the quality of the dirt rock
4. look at the walls of the "mine", at this point you should see it having greyish or blueish dirt. if not, keep digging
5. mine them out using your stick. if they arent coming out easy, wiggling it should help
6. store it in a hole and repeat the process
Is this even possible is the Gulf South ? I would worry about humidity
I personally would not worry at all. When we were building our house we had many rain storms that filled our house with water before we could get it dried in and our walls have had no issues. Grant it, we stabilized our block with portland cement and that is the key. From my research the issue with earth block really is in the location where you build. Locations with high seismic activity is of greater concern than humidity. I have not read or heard of anything that would stress concern for humidity. If there is information out there with concern of humidity I too would love to read about it.
@@SustainableLiving Have you seen those manual brick presses ? I was wondering what the down side might be . Thanks .
Also check out this engineer study,
ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29AE.1943-5568.0000311
Please note I do not get paid for promoting this sight, but they do have a lot of good engineered studies on this page, though they charge for their research documents.
Do you have to use Portland cement?
Where to buy the machine?
Hello I am trying to purchase the compressed brick maker ! Can you please tell me the model number of the machine you used in this video
BLM-12-8A2, these machines are made in New Mexico, here is their website: earthtek.us/
Thank you so much
If anyone could answer this, I'd be so, so thankful.
Are CEB's temperature regulating properties applicable to a 6b US climate zone? I read that two feet thick walls would give a structure enough thermal mass to essentially effectively cool or heat a place. But I also read that CEB temperature regulating properties are most useful in climates like a desert, with wide swings in day time and night time temperatures.
I don't know if this helps or not, but I live in the climate zone 6, in AZ, and my blocks are 12 inches thick. We heat with a wood stove. The stove is in the central part of the house and once the house gets up to temp. it really does maintain the temp. We left a few weeks to find warmer temperatures and were gone for three days. The house did cool down and it took 24 hrs before the house was back up to normal swings. We typically will have a 5 to 6 degree swing from night to morning when it gets really cold and that is not stoking the stove throughout the night. This is lows around 9 degrees. When our lows hover around 30-40 degrees the fluctuation is much less. We did put stucco on the house this summer and this has helped stabilize the temperature more. We use a swamp cooler to cool the house and it does just fine. I find cooling the house and keeping it cool is easier than the cold. Hope this helps.
Rat trap bond might be best suggestion as per my experience
@@chbalreddy6883 what is a rat trap bond?
It would work the problem you will have is heating all that mass is not very efficient, you do have to keep it heated. How far are you willing to go? Earth ship? Wood heat? The dry climates help the block last longer also, that's why you will not see this on East Coast. Buried sod houses with moisture membrane are used in cold wet climates.
Add a little mineral oil or vegetable oil into the soil as the moistener and it'll be naturally waterproof
Soil is primarily mixture of sand, silt and clay - not sand and clay. Also included are water, air, organic matter and biota.
Watching this has successfully convinced me that compressed earth blocks are not a good building material.
What’s the benefit of this construction? R value?
now add 9% of portland and you have a wall ;)
For creating earth blocks, a 10% Portland cement mix would indeed not be a 10 to 1 ratio.
10% cement mix means that out of every 100 parts of the mix, 10 parts should be cement.
A 10 to 1 ratio would mean 10 parts of another material to 1 part cement. This would actually be a 9.09% cement mix (because 1 part cement out of 11 total parts is 1/11, which equals approximately 9.09%).
- To achieve a 10% cement mix, you would need a 9 to 1 ratio of other materials to cement (because 1 part cement out of 10 total parts is 1/10, which equals 10%).
So, if you're aiming for a 10% Portland cement mix in your earth blocks, you should use a 9 to 1 ratio of dirt to cement.
Do these bricks need firing
No they do not
Haha, Dan didn’t give you Earthtek decals either? All we wanna do is rep the brand! 😂
Yeah, we do not have any connection to him, no paid endorsement or sponsorship from him here.
Just giving him free advertisement.
Dan is a very decent guy. I enjoyed the personal tutorial and his help in figuring things out for what would work for me.
@@Somewhere-In-AZ I agree, he gave me a great run through of the machine when I purchased it. Got along so well I ended up just hanging out for an hour with him and his brother afterwards. Great guys!
i bet someone with a machine shop could modify a cheap log splitter to become a brick press.
good eye, I've heard of someone doing this. DiY is the future
1800 pounds lol ya right, those two cylinders will produce about 50,000 lbs at 1800 psi
What sources did you use for your 10% cement amount?
ascelibrary.org/action/doSearch?AllField=building+with+compressed+earth+block+within+the+building+code
Here is a good source, many engineer studies completed here.
I purchased the "Building with compressed earth block within building Code"
It discusses using 7% portland to stabilize their block. They went by weight, we did 10% by volume.
@@SustainableLiving a research paper I saw in which the scientist tested over 1,500 blocks yielded a 10% cement + 5% lime ratio to work the best overall
Don't you need to heat them?
does anyone know where a person could rent the machine in question?
I am willing to rent my machine. Mine is the one in the video!
how much was the machine please
When my friend purchased his machine it was around $12k, they are selling for much more now around $16-18k
Why use cement?
The website is selling machines for $105,000.00 and the same machine cost under $5,000 in China.
I guess that it would be cheaper to purchase pre made bricks.
why do other videos recommend 70-75% sand and 10% clay. I am trying to figure out what the difference is. Thanks
when you say 90% sand 10% clay is the silt counted with the clay or sand?
I liked your explanation but in terms of cost, buying a tractor would cost more than a mixer
I suggest using a trench of 2x12 boards. And a walk behind tiller. Will be slower. Less $
Explodes!? Where Are you gettin' your dirt out of minefield 😅
Rammed earth blocks are the reason you see a 3 or 4 point earthquake in places like Turkey and China resulting in thousands of casualties. They liquify when shaken. Building them in California would be suicide. But even building them in the Midwest is foolish given the crashing frequency and severity of fracking related quakes.
Nothing but an extended commercial for expensive machinery. Not cool, youtube.
Typically you just rent these. Lol
Did you use rebar
We did not use rebar in the block, just rebar in the bond beam and in the footings
3
Is it possible to add some cement to the clay and sand.
Stupid question!!! We can see why you did not do well in school. Lol!!!
2
I going to build a swarm of robots that do this auto magically.
why didn't you just make regular adobe blocks like people have been making for centuries? I have been studying both regular Adobe and compressed blocks....
That was a big decision that we did weigh through. It really boiled down to time and access to a block machine. Using the machine was much quicker to make block. We had the block made and laid in the wall in 3 months. We have friends that built with the traditional adobe and it took them well over two years. Traditional adobe, one has to form them out and let them cure for a certain period of time. The block machine, one can make the block and can then be set in the wall within 24 to 48 hours. Since we had access to the equipment this is the way we went.
@@SustainableLiving Makes sense, I looked into new compressed block machines, they wanted about 40K...
how much was that machine? Did you have go get it or delivered?
@@alexzabala2154 the machine is around $15k and it was my Friends machine and he went and picked it up from New Mexico, since he lives in AZ and it was not to big of a drive for him.
Thank you sir....it's waaay cheaper than Earth Dwell ....they want 60k
how to make a compressed earth block:
spend thousands of dollars on a machine that'll do it for you.
wow, such a useful tutorial....
You guys need a mega sized blender
Isn't that also called a be brick? Brick is made of clay then fired