We decided to use an ancient building technique but an unusual contruction technique for the Northeastern part of Texas, USA when we built our home in 1986.  Pise' Terre, stabilized adobe, or more commonly known in the architectural community as "rammed earth" was used.  Rammed earth construction has enjoyed a bit of a revival and new technological developments beginning in the late 1970's in northern California with Mr. David Easton of Rammed Earth Works. Mr. Easton has a very informative site on earth constuction, I highly recommend it. A team of five men constructed these earth walls in a 14 day period!  The walls do not have an "R- value" but more properly they are described as providing thermal mass and as such provide a "thermal lag time".  For our 14" thick walls itnormally takes 12 hours for a constant energy source to move through the entire wall.  This provides an "insulative" type of property to the structure.

The earth wallsare substantial.  Each 8 ft x 9.5 ft wall panel weighs approximately 10,500 lbs. (6 cu yards of earth compacted to half of it's normal volume with approximately  3% portland cement as a chemical stabilizer.

The walls are built in place using movable forms atop a substantial reinforced concrete footing (14"W x 36"H) designed to handle the weight.

Rough cedar along with double 2x4 stud walls and a central air space was used to "connect" the earthen walls and to provide space for all windows and doors. The design also included a generous roof overhang to protect the cosmetic surface of the natural walls. The back drop of this page is the color of our natural soil walls.

Another interesting site I found on the web on Rammed Earth in Australia.

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