How to Build an Adobe Home
Adobe is one of the oldest materials in use that is easy to make and extremely durable. It's is a bulding material made from clas soil, water and straw, and was one of the first building materials used in recorded history. The mass of the adobe walls will absorb heat and radiate it back out into the house at night. These type of homes are generally built by people living in dry climates.
- Difficulty:
- Challenging
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- Dirt
- Straw
- Water
- Trowel (optional)
- Wheelbarrow
- Rubber gloves
- Level
- 5-gallon buckets, two or more
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Describe Adobe
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Adobe bricks are soil, straw and water mixed together, forming mud and placed into a mold. The bricks are then baked in the sun. The resulting bricks can be any size and shape, but as they get bigger they also get heavier. Adobe is shaped into bricks that can be stacked to form walls.
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Bricks are 10 inches wide, 14 inches long, and 4 inches high.
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Adobe brick making is really very simple technology. All you really need is dirt and water, and a hole in the ground to mix them and then form them by hand.
Make Adobe Walls
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Figure out how many bricks you will need. Determine the number by the size of adobe brick you want to use and the size of the wall you want to make.
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Put a 2-inch layer thick of mud mixture on top of the foundation.
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Let the bricks dry in the form for a short while. You can then remove the form and fill it again. The form for making the bricks is usually two 2 x 4 studs, about 96 inches long. It's an odd number because a regular stud is actually 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches.
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Let the bricks sit where they are and dry for a short time. When they are solid and dry enough to move, stand them up on their sides to dry some more. Make a few bricks, but keep in mind that it make take a few weeks until they are dry enough to use to build a wall.
Make Adobe Bricks
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Lay a foundation for your wall using the mud mixture you made for the bricks.
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The foundation can be gravel, stone or a cement footing. Gravel is the easiest but least durable. Make the foundation as long and wide as the wall. Make sure it is straight and level.
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Use the same adobe mixture you used for the bricks but slightly wetter.
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Put an inch or two of mixture on top the bricks and add a new a new layer of bricks. Repeat until the wall is complete. Use your level wihile building the wall to make sure it is straight and level.
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Allow the wall to dry for a few days after it's built.
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Use the adobe mixture, a little dryer, as a plaster to cover the wall. Apply about and inch or so and smooth it out.
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Tips & Warnings
It's time-consuming to handcraft adobe bricks, so you may want to buy them instead of making them.
The mixture between the bricks will take up space, so keep this in mind when you are calculating the number of bricks you are going to make.
It's better to overstimate the number of bricks you will need then to understimate them.
Mud mixture should be free of materials like sticks, twigs, rocks and other foreign matter.
Many people find patterns and texture of Adobe walls very attractive.
Since the bricks are 4 inches tall, you are going to need 15 or more layers to make a 6-foot-high wall.
Plants should be a minimum of 24 inches between your adobe walls and your plants; however, 36 inches is better. Adobes are like sponges and can absorb an incredible amount of water.
It's best to lay the adobe bricks in warm weather because the mixture used will freeze.
Water running off the roof can often damage adobe walls.
Walls can also be damaged by careless watering or overwatering of plants that have been planted too close to the walls.
