Any thoughts about rammed earth houses in Taiwan? I know there are concerns about rammed earth in places with lots of rain, but my understanding is that a roof with decent overhang would do the trick. How would that hold up to a typhoon or earthquake?
I would also be curious to know about how construction on a rammed earth house would go. I know a big factor in those is labor costs, but what about quality of construction/people who know what theyre doing? Other than places in the Western US and Australia, is there much by way of rammed earth companies?
Quite a lot of it in Morocco when I was there in the mid 80ās, though the historical stuff (eg Taroudant City Walls) was a bit eroded by rain.
Iād guess itāll either have got quite a lot worse or itāll have been restored, probably/ hopefully the latter, though some of the charm will be lost.
Its a ātraditionalā technique in Taiwan, with a few examples surviving, so it apparently can hold up OK.
Iāve done it twice; second one is a work-in-progress.
Made a bit of a pigās ear of the first one; the second one is going a bit more smoothly. Iāll post pictures later.
To answer @nzās question: yes, heavy rain will destroy a rammed earth wall, even a cement-stabilized one, but as you said a reasonable roof overhang is all you need. The destructive effect comes from the abrasive impact of raindrops, not the water per se; so humidity/dampness isnāt an issue.
You also need a fairly high stem wall to prevent splashback.
Iām intending to use traditional woven-bamboo walls (āsawaliā) as a cladding (traditional, that is, over here in Elbonia). Iāll be using ordinary metal furring to attach the sawali to the concrete frame of the building. As well as the mechanical protection, Iām hoping the air gap will help maintain a constant internal temperature.
As far as earthquakes are concerned, read Gernot Minkeās research.
Just so you know: building with rammed earth is very, very labour-intensive. For anything bigger than a microhouse, you need some serious machines. If youāre doing it yourself (as part of a team - donāt even think of doing it alone) youāll probably end up looking like a Mr Olympia contestant at the end of it.
Great idea. Building a false roof several inches above the actual roof is a time-honored way to thwart high temps inside houses in the American Southwest.
This guy is a building contactor in Austin, TX. He makes videos like this when heās thinking about building new things; maybe someone contacted him and asked about rammed earth houses. This is one being built in Marfa, TX. It is super labor intensive, as finley points out.
See that here in Taiwan too on the old brick-and-tile houses. Its often a secondary modern metal structure and is probably applied primarily because the original roof leaks, but Iād think it must also have a cooling effect.
I applied some black geotextile matting to shade the flat slab roof when living on the top floor of a Tainan flat, spaced with plastic cups. There was enough give that you could still walk on it.
There were some quite nice huts on the formerly public beach at Anping, built from the bamboo that washes in from the oyster farming rafts, which otherwise is burned. Also several iterations of the foreigner-built Anping Bamboo Tower, which had an official-looking plaque at one point. (Seen after typhoon damage in the image below)
That area has apparently been ālegally stolenā by property developers now though (walled off, no swimming notices, no more sailing, diving or swimming club operations) and it is all gone.
There was a bit of legal posturing over it, some years back, but basically the developers had the right guanxi and all the problems magically disappeared. The locals were not impressed.
Anybody know if theyāre actually making some return on their investment? Iād guess most Taiwanese people know what happened and some of them (surely) must be voting with their feet.
The first building has a secondary āfloatingā roof made of nipa and bamboo, which Iāve found to be an excellent form of thermal insulation and 99% rainproof. Itās also dirt-cheap. The main downside is that it only lasts a year or two and gets infested with ants. Separating it from the rest of the building makes it easy to discard and replace at regular intervals.
Iād need very long odds to bet on that being significant.
I suspect one of the main reasons (apart from corruption) that this sort of thing seems common here is that if āthe price of liberty is eternal vigilanceā Taiwanese in general are too focused on their own (family) affairs to maintain such vigilance.
Iāve tried discussing the Anping Beach Ripoff with Taiwanese friends and acquaintances several times and found zero awareness or interest.
Thereās another beach with concrete benches for sunset watching. The watersport stuff is a minority interest and free access was probably reducing the amount of money being made from it. Canāt have that.
Similar story with a "veterans village " near Tainan AFB, which I took a lot of photos of during demolition, which infuriatingly I seem to have lost. It had a nice wee folksy museum and tree-house complex as a centrepoint, and a bit of a community preservation campaign. I asked a Taiwanese colleage who lived less than a kilometer away if sheād taken her kids to see the (doomed) tree houses yet. Never heard of it. All gone now.
I donāt know that many people and I donāt speak Chinese, so my sample is small, but I wouldnāt think it would be especially unaware.
As well as low awareness/interest Taiwanese are hugely cynical/fatalistic about the possibility of beating big money. One sees this attitude adopted by foreigners too (seems implicit in the phrase ālegal posturingā above, for example). This is realistic, but its also a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Expecting a boycott after the event because a development was on land āstolen from the peopleā doesnāt seem at all realistic. Even if potential customers knew and cared (which seems doubtful) its too late.
Because we talked about shipping container homes upthread, Iām throwing this out there. Itās NYC-centric, but I like it because it just goes to show that homes can be made from shipping containers and that the definition of home is not necessarily a function of the house you physically occupy. Itās also pretty interesting, I think.
I wouldnāt even begin to know where to start with building a complete rammed earth house. Iāve watched Youtube, but that doesnāt even begin to teach how to do things if you donāt go out and actually try it yourself. Iāve done plenty with large branches as a kid, along with bamboo here, but Iāve never ābuiltā anything other than a wall/fence or a tiny space with a roof that I can sit in, sometimes with one other person.
My bigger concern about building rammed earth is: would anyone working here know how to do it correctly? The last thing I would want to do would be hire a crew that spends years derping around, only to move in to a house thatās crumbling. And we are, of course, assuming I had the money to do this. I have noticed that most laborers are not Taiwanese. Seems labor importation is a global thing. My guess is that they donāt get paid as well, but thatās not going to stop the construction company from charging me as much as they can for the labor costs that theyāre not passing on to their workers. But again, Iād need to know the people actually know what theyāre doing.
Why do you want to build a rammed earth house it seems like a waste of time and hard work .
People in Taiwan used to build with stone blocks, red brick and also rice straw and mud houses. Much faster and easier . Now they build with concrete and sheet metal. Not sure why they need rammed earth too. Do you want to create giant termites nests ?
If you do it properly, youād better not have termites in your rammed earth home!
I like the idea in theory because theyāre naturally insulating and aesthetically unique. They donāt hold up as long as concrete houses, but are also āall naturalā, as it were, (assuming you donāt reinforce), which means that at the end of life, the materials go back into the ground and you havenāt wasted the fine sand that is increasingly harder to get for good concrete (and often stolen from beaches, leading to horrific amounts of erosion). Letās be real here: concrete homes should last for hundreds of years, but do they? How many 50 year old buildings here in Taiwan need to be knocked down and rebuilt because theyāre not structurally sound? Might as well build with the environmental impact in mind.
My vote is for the metal structure. Faster, cheaper, more flexibility. Slap some solar panels and a water tank on there and youāve got an off the grid palace.
Well the key word is properly. Iām sure a sheet metal house built properly can be very comfortable, so can properly built concrete, rammed earth, mud/straw houses. But since nobody knows anything about rammed earth would you like to spend your millions to be a test case, or be on site constantly to instruct workers on how to do it (and of course youāre learning from youtube videos)?
Taiwanese are experienced at building from reinforced concrete, sheet metal, or bricks (at least for the old timers). Actually another thing you could consider is those air filled foamy bricks. Itās basically bricks but filled with air. Itās huge but weights basically nothing (the brick is about 40 cm x 60cm x 10 cm in size, but you can pick up that one large brick with minimal effort. It has great thermal insulation, is fairly strong, reasonably resistant to earthquakes (because it weights basically nothing). I donāt know about 2 story houses but you could just have a steel skeleton built (with steel girders, try to avoid trusses) and do the walls with these air bricks. You need to paint it with waterproof paint because the brick isnāt water resistant but the brick itself is very easy to work with. I see the masons just cut it with a woodworking saw and mortar it together like a traditional brick.
Once done up like this your house will be as strong as a brick house and will be well insulated too.
My landlord loves using themā¦ he did the bathroom in my house with it. I donāt know the cost but I guess the reason he didnāt do the whole house with it is probably due to its costā¦ And by the way the brick in the picture weights probably about 4kg.
