Compressed Earth Block House
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- Опубліковано 5 бер 2020
- This is a video of our family building our own home. The video is mainly a slideshow of us building our home and me narrating the build. At the end of the video I do provide a brief tour of our home and some of the unfinished projects we are planning on completing.
This is a compressed earth block home. Some may call it adobe but we did not form the blocks like traditional adobe, rather we used a machine that compressed the blocks to over 1500 pounds per square inch. This type of building material is now being published in the national build code. From the time we broke ground to moved in was approximately 18 months. This process was a pay as you go so re-purposing items was very key. We learned to swallow our pride for the accomplishment of having a debt free home.
We did most the work ourselves but did have hired work for specific projects which I explain in the video. Many thanks for my friend Michael who mentored me through this process and his service along with his family the rendered in helping our family. He would help teach us what to do and then we went and did.
These machines are made in New Mexico. I find it fascinating that they ship these machines all over the world to countries that do not have access to lumber so they can build homes for families. I no longer drive in the high desert of Arizona and think that I am on Mars but rather I now see potential of families freeing themselves from debt. This part of the country the clay and sand ratio is perfect for adobe.
I must confess that when we built our home our county had no code for this product. We contemplated whether we should go traditional or risk and build with this material without a permit. Let me clarify we did not just throw this house up. We followed a code from New Mexico that was structurally found to meet standards. The problem was in the lack of willingness of our county to adopt new building practices in our area. We felt strongly this was the path for us to go so we embarked.
What happened legally? Almost a year into the build they found my building and issued me a stop work order. I was so far along in the building process there was nothing they could do. They turned me over to the county attorney and we ended up with only getting our property marked that we had build without a permit. So what that means if we ever decide to sell we have to disclose this which may keep the buyer from getting a traditional loan. We are not planning on selling and with the total cost of the house being less than $60k and now my value being much more I have no issues with this. I share this figure not to brag, but rather to encourage other ways of securing your home without going the traditional way that enslaves one.
Over all we put this process into God's hands when we as a family prayed about this we felt this is what were supposed to do. We felt we had heaven communicate to use that all would work out fine. The 3 months of working with the county, I began to question the direction we had gone. We were reassured that all would be well. Sure enough it was and we have not been any more happier with this decision. We learned an important truth, when God speaks it does not matter what man says. It is not my intent to be proselyting here but I have to acknowledge blessings as they are. If not, I would only be deceiving myself and misleading others. I would have never went through with this project without such assurances.
I hope you enjoy the video - Розваги
I Remember when half the men in the area showed up to put up the trusses. What a great day!! You have got alot of friends partner!!
Yes, I am so grateful for all the help they gave that day.
I loved that you gave all your credit to God first. I love your house man, its been a great build.
This is one of the best videos I have seen in a while were family is shown as important as the build. Were the father shows he is his family's spiritual leader, and that he give his wife his love and shows his love for her by thinking her for her patients with him during the build, along with her support. And his love for their children as well throughout the slide show. This man give thinks to the heavenly father for it all and family and friends. It is good during these times were he who is on this earth who is not of the father. That there are family who are not afraid to be the family that God wanted us to be and to show it as well. My God continue to Bless you and your family. As well as your other love ones my friend.
Thank you so much for your kind words that means a lot to our family we try hard to be a God-fearing family, teaching our children of him to the best of our ability, thanks again.
Your hard work paid off !!!! You all have a warm, Beautiful, loving Home . So much work the friends and family that helped along the way are all truly family!!!! What a great support system and a circle of family that will enjoy your home and fill it with love. Great Job you should as all be so proud.
Great build, that part of the high plateau was home for many years. Brings back lots of good time memories. Stay warm in that Beautiful home/land
God Bless
Shalom, we built our own home as well and we understand the stress that comes along with it. We had 2 small children at the time of our build and we missed a lot of time with them trying to get debt free. Fast forward, 1 year later and we can actually save $ and do so much more for our family. Taking the debt free path isn’t always the easiest especially when you are going against the grain. It was so stressful at times when my husband was exhausted 😩 because we had little to no help! We did enjoy watching your videos and felt the need to comment to let you know that you are not alone. Best of luck on your endeavors...
very smart and beautiful plus the kids will remember this forever
This is amazing! You should teach this to people interested. Wow! 😮Beautiful family too❤
I bought an AECT Impact 2001a and will be starting our house very soon. It is an inspiration to see someone finish their house. God bless you and your family.
Thank you for checking out our documentation of our house video. I am excited for you in your new build. If you haven't considered documenting your process I would highly recommend it, there is a hunger for this info and the more info we share will open minds to alternative building practices. I really believe this is a very sustainable method of building and it is one possible solution to helping families and individuals free themselves. Blessing to you too.
Please post video. And if you are anywhere near San Antonio could I stop by for a day to help/learn?
@@directorbones @Russell_Snow on twitter
That was a heck of a lot of work. But look what came of it, amazing people getting together to help one another. You wanted something bad enough and you went for it n got er done 👍🏼
You have some awesome friends and a beautiful family. You my friend are blessed 🙏🏻
Excellent video. Thanks for acknowledging God and his blessings!!
This Has to be my second favorite house of all time!!
:)
Great video! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching, this was definitely a life change experience for our family
My wife and I are getting ready to build our Earthship Biotecture style Hydraform compressed earth block home north of Reno-Sparks, Nevada. Love Your Video and Blessings to Your Entire Family!! Wow! Praise God for The Endeavor for Each Person in Your Family!!
Thank you so much for your kind words, we wake up everyday giving thanks for what we have been blessed with.
Hello I'd like to ask if you have built it already, how is it a hydraform
How did everything work out?
@@ustaadaadam No - we had not achieved our goal (partly due to covid and I had a heart attack). We have not stopped - just slowed down.
Thank you for thanking God. thank you for the info.
Absolutely, if I did not I would have only be lying to myself.
And what a tremendous amount of work and sacrifice. It was wonderful seeing you working together as a family.
It's crazy to look back to see how far we have come, sometimes I sit in bed questioning if this really happened.
Really enjoyed this video. Thank you for thanking the Almighty first before anyone else. Thanks for the family pics and allowing everyone a hand at building the house and ancillary units. Stay blessed and keep inspiring.
What you and your family have built your children will never forget because they helped
Y’all did a great job on the house! It’s really nice. God bless and keep your family.
Thank you for sharing your journey
Thank you for checking out our channel
My mom and I just got to finish the full video. Even though it’s not video for the most part, the slide show was awesome. We are looking into doing a similar home this spring! We’ll keep you posted! Thank you so much for sharing!!
Please do, I would love to see some pictures.
As an historic restoration mason from Central New York State, I am impressed. I visited Arizona once 20 years ago and enjoyed it. I saw a FEW actual adobe buildings. The use of adobe remarkably was done in the 1840's and 50's here in New York's Finger Lakes in about 18 homes that were inspired by recommendations in a book at that time by Andrew Jackson Downing. I actually worked on one of these homes (built 1853) making new adobe bricks to repair a bit of damage. I also worked on a new straw bale house in the same town and decided the qualitative difference between the two in terms of solidity and appearance was so slight that I changed from an interest in adobe to an interest in straw bale. Not what I expected at all since i thought straw bale was stupid 'til I actually was hired to work on it. Way less work too. I can appreciate the work you did on the compressed blocks since this summer for instance I dismantled and then reconstructed 54,000 lbs of bulging old stonework 18 feet high. So I know what you have been through. The hardest part is the money!!! If you do an earth exterior stucco, consider experimenting with hydrated lime mixed with the same clay and sand. One part hydrated lime and 4 parts clay and sand will make a non-dissolvable mix when placed underwater. PLUS you can pre-mix all of it and as long as it is kept wet, it will not set up. It has no cement and the hydrated lime is non hydraulic so remains workable indefinitely as long as it is wet. You mix it very sloppy into a 2 ft high plywood box lined with plastic sheet. Just dump the mortar mixer contents into the box and when full, cover with more sheeting and some weight to keep the wind from removing the sheet. The volume can be whatever size you need but the height needs to be below the mixer lip. It stiffens about 30% the next day and then remains workable for weeks after that point. No more mixing each day. Just wet with a hose periodically and occasionally re-temper what you take out and put in a wheelbarrow. Hope this wasn't too tedious to read through!! All blessings come down from the Father of Lights who does not change like shifting shadows.
"One part hydrated lime and 4 parts clay and sand will make a non-dissolvable mix when placed underwater. PLUS you can pre-mix all of it and as long as it is kept wet, it will not set up. It has no cement and the hydrated lime is non hydraulic so remains workable indefinitely as long as it is wet. " Thanks for this great tip, I will definitely being trying this. I have since put stucco on the house and I would have loved to try this method. Before the stucco we used an earthen plaster with no portland or lime and we sealed it with linseed oil and it did okay but I was not fully satisfied so I ended up with struccoing my project. I have a few other projects that I will be doing and I will definitely being trying your suggestions. Thanks for the tips.
@@SustainableLiving Very good. Just remember a sloppy mix stiffens overnight to the right consistency and then remains that way as long as it keeps wet. Water can be added if it gets a bit stiff over the weeks.(you have drier weather than we do!)
@@paulbriggs3072 thanks
Wonderful! God bless you and your family.
This is fantastic and inspitational. God is good!
Love the house but makes me realize why i love tiny houses much less labor. Super good waterproofed blocks. I think i like rammed earth better though.
rammed earth does look really cool & is very energy efficient and if done right would be a great business to get into because i've seen rammed earth houses go for sometimes as high as 30% more than traditional houses of the same size and location ... there are plenty of rich people who fall in love with that look and are too impatient to have one built cheaper for themselves so they tend to just pay whatever the builders price is to get and live in it now
Wow, you are very good.
thank you so much for checking out our video, this was definitely a like changing experience.
It's amazing what you did. Truly amazing and your house is beautiful.
Thank you for the kind words, we appreciate your guy's support.
I'm glad you mentioned that about the children playing in the trenches. That could be a tragedy waiting to happen.
Amazing video, sir! Loved it! Thank you so much for sharing this journey with us, and great job choosing CEB's! God bless! :)
Thanks for checking out our video, I really do appreciate the positive feed back.
Nice home. Such a value too.
Absolutely breathtaking to watch you and the family make such a huge sacrifice to build your home. I really hope you enjoy it for a long time to come.
God bless you, and family my friend.
Thank you
Thanks, like I said all that you have stated has relieved some of my stress for making my blocks
Congratulations!!! I commend you on your achievements. I am in Gold Canyon, AZ, and own an Earth Tek CEB making machine that I haven't used yet. I would love to come and see your beautiful home and pick your brain. Wishing you and your lovely family many happy years in your new home.
That would be great, message me through Facebook. The link is in my banner.
You can also message me through my email, please refer to my email address in my "About" thanks.
Extraordinary! God bless you & family.
Great job, great message. My parents did something similar in our family back in 90’. Needless to say it took 3plus yrs to complete. God bless
Thank you! And God bless you and your wonderful family!
Beautiful home and beautiful family. Congratulations
This was a very enjoyable video. Your house is beautiful. Loved that the whole family was involved and such great memories were made. Very inspirational. May God continue to bless your family.
What a wise man. Clearing his field and building himself a house. Debt free! Following the blueprint of the bible as stated in the book of proverbs. EXCELLENT JOB
I enjoy the video, the build ,and the community and family involve , nice job
Love and respect from Pasadena, CA.
Thanks for sharing. I am planning to build my house and your experience has been awesome lesson for me.
I am glad this was a help, good luck on your journey building your house, don't give up when it gets hard, it will be worth it in the end.
Hi Bhuti (means brother). Glory to God. I am from the Eastern Cape South Africa and many people are very sceptical of building a house with a cseb block. They believe it is a waste of building material and not strong enough but you have showed me that the secret is the size of the brick. Our mixing methods are the same but our sizes are very big. So I will reduce my sizes going forward for my house. Thank you Sir. God bless you and your family and I will keep in mind "debt free"!!
Thank you for taking time to watch our video, yes I believe the key is the size of the block, using 10 percent portland-cement and making sure there is no big rocks or organic material in the block, these last two things will severely weaken the block. The company that my friend bought this machine from was out of New Mexico here in the US, I hear they ship these machines all over the world especially Africa, just wondering if you have seen these machines over there? I wish you the best in your building.
@@SustainableLiving Thank you for the response sir. We have the machines this side as well.
Fabulous home. Loved your family
Bravo! You guys did great! I love that you gave God the Glory first thing. 💞
What a blessing to have all the friends and family to assist you. Thanks for sharing!
Love it, I wish you had some lighter colors but the best house is the debt free one
I am inspired for construction of my house. Will be working on it soon.
thank you so much good luck on your build
Appreciate you sharing your faith.
Beautiful home you guys did a great job God bless🙏
Very very good job. Beautiful house.. God bless you and your family..
This is genius🤩 So beautiful house :D
Very nice, thanks for sharing. Ron PTL USA
I heard you say something that is so important for so many reasons....you chose to live a debt free life. ive just recently become aware of this concept and am working out moving forward in the same way. not by building credit(social credit score) or trying to adhere and fit in to a society that has lost all sense of morality and removing any hope of living a meaningful life, but by learning to live outside that system and how to be self sufficient and less material oriented but instead building relationships and trying to discover how to live as we were meant to in this purpose- confusing world we live in that is constantly trying to distract us from seeking such understanding. best wishes to you and your family.
Man thats so inspiring, i dont know if thats the right word, maybe motivational? At the end i got flooded with all kinds of emotions so idk lol. Thats awesome how your family was all part of it.👏
May the Lord blessed you with all that you wishes for and working on.
This seems surreal. I not only have that same earth block machine, but i also have been designing a house that has almost the exact same layout as yours. I even wanted to do olive green concrete counter tops too! Beautiful work, excited to see more on this channel!
cool house, i want one
Are you done with that machine? Are you interested in selling it?
@@kbwfgg6400 Not yet, I'll let you know if I ever feel like selling it though.
@@ChrisBrooker What model do you have and where are you located? Consider possibly renting it for a couple weeks this summer?
@@kbwfgg6400 I have the Earthtek BLM-12-8A4 and am located in Acworth, GA. I would consider renting it if you're interested.
God Bless you buddy, beautiful work, nice video
Beautiful home.
Looks awesome!
Wonderful. I'm also planning to build a natural house. Thanks for sharing your experience really helpful.
Wow. Super nice!
Awesome brother.
Ash how technology and government regulations have changed. I remember going back to my childhood years when I was 10 years old, my grandpa and grandma who came into the US from Mexico on the Bracero’s Treaty of 1942 they obtained some land in the Chihuahuan Desert far east of El Paso Texas. One whole summer my older brother, sister, and myself spent our summer making adobe bricks, by hand, shovel, and grass stalks. We had row after row of them made about 12 by 18 inches maybe 6 inches thick. I remember we just laid them on the outline grandpa had. It was hot, sunny, and dry. Once we got to the roof line we went with him just driving down dirt roads, finding stuff he needed like thrown out lumber, canvas pieces, tin, tile, linoleum. He eventually had a roof and finished. Kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms. Out house in back away from house. Baths were traditional tin tub and sponge bath (they call it today). The kitchen was simple with clay pots and griddles for cooking, oil lamps for lighting, an old car/truck radio and speaker with a car battery outside to power it for news and entertainment, for us kids the Lone Ranger radio segments in the mornings. The floors were plain dirt covered with pieces of vinyl tile or linoleum pieces. I remember how cool it was indoors. Eventually he trolled some kind of plaster over the outside to preserve the adobe from erosion. Basically, by todays standards it was an “off-grid” homestead, Solar wasn’t available in those days. They were dirt poor but like this video states, with GOD all things are possible. That experience set my life to be a hard working man that ended with a great 43 year career in maintenance of which I’m retired from and living the life. Today, I am glad to see adobe making a comeback.
I wished that you had given more details about the machine that you used: brand, how you got it, did you rent it or buy it? etc.
You do not have to apologize for give God the glory for how He worked in your life. He should get credit where credit is due and don't worry about the haters, they will always be there.
God bless you
Hi I would like to chat in the future I got into the idea of earth blocks a couple years ago and now I am in the process of finding my optimal mixture. I have a manual block maker since my future build will be less than 1000 sq ft. I love your video it helped me to refocus on things.
I would love to help with any answers that I can, I would be happy to share more in what we did.
How many trial runs did you approximately do before getting your ideal mixture? I have a qmr-40 manual machine use for interlocking blocks
I would love to chat
let me know the best means to accomplish this I will try to answer any questions I can, remember I am not an expert in this field I just have experience with my house.
Good job congratulations to you
Inspiring! What a great community of friends and family you have.
Un grand Bravo de France 🇫🇷👍👏👏
Nice! Very nice!
Looks like a good job. However, your breaker panel should have been on an outside block wall for added fire safety.
Really nice to see the work put in and the results as well. Hope to see more of your projects on brick houses. All the best!!
Amazing!
Beautiful babies! Awesome job!
Thank you for sharing your experience... truly inspiring.
What a great job. I believe this is called stabilized compressed earth block-sceb's- what machine did you use to compress the block and where did you get it- so far how do you like the feeling of living in an earth home as far as sound, energy efficiency, personal comfort. God bless
Thanks for viewing our video. You are correct since we added the portland cement to our blocks they then became stabilized. So the machine is made from Earthtek, the machine was either a BLM-12-8A2 or BLM-12-8A4 I don't remember, very similar machines one produces blocks a little faster. The company's website is: www.adobemachine.com/
My friend had recently built him a home out of this material and convinced me to do the same. So the machine was his and he was the one who purchased it from Earthtek. We love living in our home. It does have a different feel than a traditional home. We have had people come into our home with hyper-sensitive allergy issues and they love our home and have no issues. We have no issues with heating. The wood stove is our primary source of heat. I am sure you are aware of thermal mas, so once our house gets up to temperature it holds its own very well, even if we open all the doors, after closing them one hardly notices the heat loss. It does echo a bit. We are working on getting more drapes and other forms of sound buffers. Over all our home feels very grounding, no pun intended. As to energy, we use propane for our tank-less water heater and for our cook stove. This runs us about $600 a year. Electric we put all LED lights in our cans and we only pay on Average $70 in electric a month and this stays true through summer and winter. And we burn about 3-4 cords of wood which is typically about 5 months of the year. We cut our own wood and sell the excess wood to cover all our burning costs. Over we feel this have been pretty efficient for us. I would definitely do it again. If you have any other questions feel free to let me know. Thanks again for your interest.
@@SustainableLiving Thank you so much for your reply. I hope you do more videos and a follow up in a year maybe on how things are going
Thanks for your interest and will do.
Beautiful
Well done man
Great vid, beautiful job..
Also, btw. Freaking love it man. Kick freaking ass
Great job looking forward to building my own soon
Great job! I hope to build and Adobe home too. I love how warm, inviting and comfortable they are and bit toxic to your health. God bless you and your family 💯🙏
bravo bravo great job
Just wanted to start with I created an account specifically to comment this today because of how much of a gold mine it is.This is incredible! I've been looking into doing this myself but have had such a hard time coming across recent and informative data to try and get enough of a bearing to find a starting point. I live in arizona too! If you wouldn't mind would we be able to meet and go over a lot of the details on how I could genuinely do this myself?
I would be happy to try to help as best as I can contact me through my email on my about page. If you will send me your contact information there we can connect up.
Great but it would be great if you also post family vlogs🥰🥰
what a beautiful journey¡¡¡ hope and pray one day to be able to do what you just did. A home is a santuary for the whole family. Hope and pray your home stands forever and your family feels safe.
Thank you so much!
Liked the Build. I'm planning my own adobe block 2,000 sq. ft. house. It will be a southern facing passive solar house so that the sun keeps the house warm at night by shining during the day on the north adobe wall. The north wall absorbs heat from the sun during the day through south facing double pane clerestory windows high up on the adobe wall (120 to 200 square feet of window space to 2000 sq. ft. of floor space). Building codes require back-up heat source, so I will use ductless heat pump units. Wood stoves tend to dry up the air inside the house. So much to alternative "green" houses. Read Dr. Dan Chiras, "The Natural House". It's all there! J.P.
Amazing Job👍👍👍. I went down this rabbit hole a few years back, now we own about 100k worth of block equipment. I went with a vermeer BP47 because I liked the design of the block. We've only managed to turn out a few blocks so far. I joke when people ask how much they cost... I say right now, they cost about 1000 dollars a piece😂😂😂. Were having trouble finding good "available" clay to dig up here in the city of the crosses. Hopefully soon we can get this up and running. Great videos. My family absolutely loved them. Were excited to start soon.
Thanks for checking our channel out. The Vermeers are great machines, good luck with your build.
Beautiful ill be happy if mine turns out like that
thanks for the kind words, good luck with your project.
That must be awesome, to have a mother, know how to, tape drywall !!
Wet the dry concrete about 15 - 30 minutes before the pour, and re-wet as you go.
You'll get a better connection.
On another project when the trusses were going up, 6 guys from church -- 3 straddling one 18ft wall and 3 the opposite 1/2 basketball court distance apart positioned themselves. On the ground I would hook the trusses and they would pull them up and position them one-by-one as I stood starring at the ground waiting for the ropes to come down to hook up the next. Suddenly a great fear came on me and I ran about 30 feet. As I turned asking myself why I did a stupid thing like that, down came a truss right were I had been standing before I ran. Surely the Lord Jesus saved my life that day in such a strange way. Praise Him.
Great job, where starting our build soon just waiting on our permits. Building a Strawbale home.
i am impressed.. with not just the work you have done but in the validation that God is faithful to finish a good work that he has started... we are struggling with building codes in the city with a church and are trusting God for His guidance and his strength in overcoming the blockade that mankind has erected and using to stop our church from being okayed by the city.
a house is always considered a building but a home is considered a place for a family to live, grow, nurture, and learn. i am looking to move to Arizona and am curious of which county you are located in.
also on the compressed earth block machine you used did you rent, lease, or buy the machine? your house is amazing and when you said the great room was almost 1000 sq ft. i almost fell backwards! that is the size of my whole house! God has blessed you with a wonderful family and home....if possible i would love to contact you for more information and your architect / planner
for your project. i look forward to hearing from you..
Thank you for your kind words. We live in Navajo County, some counties here in Az I would have never considered this process, but there are a few that are easier to work with. From My understanding Apache County works well and I also heard that Graham County is a flexible county too. There may be others too that I am not aware of. Maricopa County I would stay away from. The real struggle is that many of these code enforces are not willing to look outside of any alternative building practices unless it is part of there check list. Even though I showed them codes from New Mexico and official studies on this product.
The machine belonged to a good friend of mine and we traded labor for the use of his machine as he is building an earth block home as well. So the machine is made from Earthtek, the machine was either a BLM-12-8A2 or BLM-12-8A4 I don't remember, very similar machines one produces blocks a little faster. The company's website is: www.adobemachine.com/
No architect involved we drew up some rough plans and took them to a friend who is a contractor and he made us some official plans to follow. We gave him New Mexico's codes and he drew it accordingly.
After we prayed about our decision we got the stamp of approval and trusted in God's answer to us. We have learned that when God speaks he is always right. I get a lot of questions from friends if they should use this product and go the route we did. I tell them to consult with God and if he tells them to do so then do it. I would have never went forward without his approval. When the code enforces did show up we had some sleepless nights but we were reassured to trust in God. After 3 months of head ache they ended up just marking our property that we built without a permit. No fines just some sleepless nights. If we ever do sell, which we are not planning to, we just have to disclose this and the buyer may not get a conventional loan. We are okay with all this, because there are owner carry options.
Sorry for the long response hope this helps. Good luck in your project.
Very inspiring video! I am wondering how easy it is to keep the house cool in summer? Thanks!
I live in Arizona and would like to build our house using same blocks. Any possibility to share plans to duplicate? We currently have land but the house is condemned so needing to submit plans to build and with very limited funds we need all the help we can. Trying be be as resourceful and green as possible and always loved the earth brick idea.
Thanks,
GOD bless
Great job! Thanks to the Lord for blessing you with the abilities and help!
What an amazing story and accomplishment. Have you got any grants from the government since this is environmentally safe. How much did you approximately spent on this beautiful home. I just got done serving in the US army and I would love to build my young family a home. Thanks for sharing this amazing story and being debt free.
Thanks very much for sharing this adventure. So amazing and wise to be a young person with a debt free home. I am considering a Compressed Earth Block home for my retirement. I live on 4 acres in SE Arizona. ONe major concern. I HATE being cold and I have read that the R value of compressed block is very low. But other argue the mass of the blocks offsets this in some way. So obviously I am a bit confused at this point. Would appreciate some input. Many thanks!
We heat solely with wood, we burn aspen and burn less wood than those that burn wood with a higher btu. Once the house is up to temperature it does hold the heat,thermal mass does really work, not for sure how to measure it but in my statement of burning aspen vs oak. This last winter was one of our coldest winters we burned for over 6 months and still only burned around 5 cords of aspen. Our elevation is around 6000 feet here in AZ, and we do just fine. My parents and gparents live in the same area, the have traditional built homes they burn over 12 cords a year of spruce. So over all I am very happy with my insulation, I did see a more stable temp. In the house once the stucco was on, but that only stabilized a 5 to 6 degree fluctuation, mind you this is only using wood, forced air throughout the night it would be more stable, as you don't have to feed it wood. Hope this helps, I would not let this scare me away from this material. We use a evaporative cooler for cooling and we easily stay around 72 degrees.
@@SustainableLiving What an excellent reply. I so appreciate it. Can I ask what its like to walk into the home overall? Does it have that basement feel that I imagine an earthen home would have? As in before the house is up to temperature to hold the heat is it damper or colder feeling than a stick built home that is well insulated? Thanks for the answers to these questions. They are crucial at this point. As a retiree I dont get to do another home once its built. Thank you!