Completed Projects
Cooperation, Honesty, Education, Responsiblity
Working for a better world
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Completed Projects
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Cooperation, Honesty, Education, Responsiblity Working for a better world |
Guest Cabin |
Our guest cabin is a demonstration piece constructed using a variety of different techniques, all of them involving modified cob mixtures.
The Building Process
Before even beginning to build, the first thing we did was to make test bricks. We tested different mixtures/proportions of materials such as clay, sand, broken straw, cow dung, mineral lime, cement, and common soil. Of all the test bricks (about 18 total), only 6 survived the first week of exposure to the natural conditions of fog, wind and rain. The remaining six were then subjected to strength tests (trying to break them with our hands or feet, immersion in water and proximity to fire). We did water immersion tests because the weather in Mazatepec is rainy and windy 3 months of the year, followed by a drenching horizontal fog and drizzle for 4 more months. If you are planning to build with adobe or cob in a drier environment, this isn´t necessary for you. The fire tests were to see the extent of cracking for use in the stove. From the results of these tests, we found the best mixture to be 2 parts clay (harvested from the upper hill on the farm), 2 parts sand and 1 part cement. This is the mixture we used for all parts of the cabin and stove.
After clearing the area for the cabin, we cut and prepared the main posts: the trees we chose to cut down were selected for their close proximity to other healthy trees (in other words, trees that were crowding out other trees). When possible, two posts were made from one tree.
The end that was put into the ground was first treated with recycled car oil and then wrapped in old plastic gunny sacks (this helps protect it from rotting).
The structure behind the cabin is the composting toilet.
After building the skeleton for the two lateral walls, we began to apply the adobe plaster and we also made bricks for the back wall. This was done with much help from our friends and volunteers.
Here´s the stick-n-adobe wall, almost finished, with windows and roof...
and the brick wall getting a finishing touch of river stone.
For the front wall, we used a collection of recycled glass bottles. We obtained some of these from a local nightclub; others were old soda bottles that had been buried by a man in the village over twenty years ago! First, we laid out a rough design on the ground, then began building. We used rebar buried in the ground and attached to the roof beams to give the wall extra support.
The completed bottle wall, an inside view ...
And finally, the finished product!
