How To BUILD A RAMMED EARTH WALL: Sustainable & STRONG! 

Have you considered adding powdered basalt or basalt fibers? Basalt reacts with co2 and converts it into a mineral (dolomite, calcite, etc). I’m wondering if that would strengthen the wall even further, maybe we could reduce the amount of cement. Basalt is naturally occurring and absorbs co2 at a rate of 92%, so using it is carbon negative. Seawater hold a lot of co2, so that could be used to mix the materials instead of regular water. Some ideas!

I've lived in old pise houses (>50 years) old. There are many different ways, including the most common Australian method of stripping off the top soil and using to soil underneath. Preferred is more clay than sandy but if there's too much clay, add some straw to stop it cracking as it dries and that's it. Moisten in your pit, bucket to your formwork and ram. Fireproof and thermally stable, as long as you use common Australian method of one metre thick exterior walls and half metre interior walls. There's examples of similarly built walls in China and the middle east that are many hundreds, even thousands of years old and old pise houses in Australia from the days of early white colonisation.

I used to own an electric Bosch demo hammer which had a 4X4" tamper attachment. It seems like a good middle ground between the hand tamper and the pneumatic hammer. I once took the shank from a broken spade bit and welded the 8x8" head from a broken hand tamper to it and it. It doubled my efficiency. The only drawback was I couldn't store it in the same box as the rest of the bits. That's not even a real problem.

Soil cement was a common way to build rural roads in the 1930's. They are very durable.

I built a rammed earth home in Georgia in 1990. The house was awesome. Super efficient and I’d put it up against an F1 Tornado any day. Not new construction but 2000 year old tech.

Great work and thank you for this video. I have been searching for RAMMED EARTH HOUSES and BUILDERS for many years now. This is a very nicely done and well informative.

This s fantastic. I always wondered how this was done. You rock!

This is a really impressive building method. I'm beyond pleased to see that it's being done with such professional and natural and aesthetic results. Rammed earth is a building material used by only three groups on the planet today: 1. The very poor, 2. The very rich, 3. The people who live in Arizona. Gets a bad rap compared to our cardboard houses with 16" spacing. The pigmented concrete is clever and beautifully done. Kudos, and good luck on further perfecting your processes!

Solid. Good drop test tip. I can imagine I'd never read about it in a book, so I'm glad you dropped that one. Makes sense. Thanks.

Wow bruh. You are pretty amazing with your knowledge and willingness to share. Big thumbs up. I will now probably do something like this in the future if I need to build a wall. Thank you.

Seu trabalho é perfeito e fica lindo essas cores!!! Parabéns!!!

Ray! This video was recommended on myRU-vid feed! You’re absolutely killing it bro! Keep up the amazing, inspiring work! Much love from Lacy

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with the whole world!!!

Awesome Video Guys!! Thanks!!

This is an excellent explanation for something I’ve been interested in doing on my property. Thank you sir. :)

Bro if you just hooked that pneumatic press up to a brick press you could 'pre-tamp' your materials for building sites, literally just laying the bricks down into the molds between layers of mortar. (The bricks could be hidden or visible). When there's enough pressure on raw sand or other materials they become -what engineers call- "stabilized Earth", so your pneumatic setup (and maybe a gearbox) could press out bricks that are stable at 0% concrete, then place those inside your walls using the 7 or 10% concrete materials sprinkled in between and around the bricks.

thank you for teaching us. good job! greetings from Argentina

Cool idea, thanks for uploading.

In Indonesia it was named batako, use peneumatic press to form a block of brick.

NICE job. Thanks.

thank you for the masterclass

Beautiful. I love it!

Really good coverage of RE in short time!

Good video, thanks mate

This is inspiring & beautiful ❤

i loved this video ! Thank you

Love it ❤thank you so much!!

very wonderful video that helped me understand the process. keep sharing keep pushing

very informative video, thanks

Thank you for sharing. Greetings from France.

I love this so much!

thanks for the information, amigo

This method of construction was used for the gift shop at the Sparrenburg Castle in Bielefeld, Germany- it looks dreadful, but it's fashionable I suppose! In your context it looks interesting and beautiful.

That is a beauty!! I wish I could do that

Hi from Tucson Arizona

Beautiful

Great information

Dreaming about building a hempcrete dome house with a steel frame. Indestructible!

Thank you for putting such informative videos online! My husband and I I've started the preliminary process (testing small blocks like you advised in another video) of building a rammed-earth retaining wall on our property up here in Scottsdale. Right now we are planning on making it 24in thick with rebar reinforcement & weep holes near the bottom. Any input or insight for us? Any & all input is appreciated!

I have a hydraulic tamper its powerful don't get a foot under it for sure. Its just so dang heavy, yeah its lighter while floating when on but it'll wear you out. This whole process will wear you out and I had a front bucket tractor. Hire this guy to do it if you are not ready to work your tail off.

Awesome information .. nice practical video... Love from india...

Great video and big admirer of your work. I wish we could all get into this. Seems right. Question, in this mixture, do you experience any shrinkage of your walls (those you have already made for clients or in testing) at the joints (where they connect to another wall)?

Parabéns! Muito corajoso e inteligente.

It’s very labour intensive, but beautiful and the bonus that it’s environmental friendly makes it worth. Thanks god, that there are people like you, who has the knowledge and willingness to do, also for the people who put extra money to order a job like this. I guess, it’s would be faster, cheaper with concrete/brick/ prefabricated materials, etc… but the ecological footprint of those technologies are much bigger, so I highly appreciate what you do.

love it thanks man ;D

How well does rammed earth work in wetter climates?

Imma try it. Thank you

0:37 "... ten thousand waves.... " AMEN! that wall is BEAUTIFUL!

great, thank you very much.

I’d like to see how it holds up in a rainstorm

Thank you

Amazing thanks

Great video! Thanks for the info. Curious why the pneumatic tamper is so expensive? That's pretty simple technology.

02:35 generosity is a must 👌

In trying to reduce the cement percentage, have you considered flyash replacing a small percentage of the cement? Could be very economical and result in a better product.

Gracias por compartir, thanks for share.

Very interesting and fine looking work. I am building my own soil cement home. Good advise. Have you experimented with wetter mixes?

Nice!

Very nice

great video

That was good. How long does it take to cure?

The community that Dennis Weaver helped started Earthship the house still holds up today is tourist attraction made with lots of bottles and cans in a self composting toilet

Nice 👍

Very interesting. How long do u let it stay in the frame before you remove it?

Cool!

Great post and pl continue to share such wisdom. I understand that we go layer by layer i.e. fill one layer of the earth mix, tamp it down and then fill another layer tamp it down. If these layers are done one day it is ok that the bonding between layers will be good. But how about the bonding between layers made in a gap of 1-3 days? Could you please help me understand this? Thanks.

Is there a foundation? When I did stone work, it was all about the foundation, to be thick enough and wide enough to hold the massive weight of the material used. Surely a house wall must weigh a substantial amount considering the height of the walls. His mix and construction method and the engineer who signed off on the it, can’t expect it to be built on soil? I’ve seen a lot of expensive stone columns, garden walls etc, slowly tilting over, because of cost cutting on the most important and critical part of the build..

So cool

Great Work Bro! Many hands make light work but if you only have a few hands Daisey the Dancing Lady does the job although my tamper is about 35kg and I am swinging that thing on 4.2m walls check it out.

Wonder how these would hold up in wet places like the swamp I live in 😂

Do you guys have some documents where i can see how much foundation needs to be for how much thickness of rammed earth wall you guys recommend for housing. Thank you in advance.

I primarily see these being done in desert like areas. Can you do this sort of building say in a state like Missouri with the natural soil there?

Cool

Very cool. Thank you for sharing. Ryan Long's alter ego?

So I’m interested in knowing about your foundation, do you just start your walls on the ground just like that without foundation?

this guy could make an incredible pastry chef

To construct homes using rammed earth technique, what should be ideal wall width?

Could you tell me about pneumatic tamper you recommend please? Where can I purchase in Australia?

What are you using for pigments?

how long after you pack it do you need to wait until you can remove/reuse the forms? Is it like concrete where you need to wait 7 days until it reaches 75% harness before you can add another kind of form on top the wall and start packing more material on top of it?

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing!

In our region we are using a reinforced concrert suspended slab. How far it works with load bearing ramped wall?

A builder, a scientist and an artist, all in one. You are awesome.

Wow it's made out of dirt, pretty cool

I wonder if rammed earth gives off dust more/less than the usual ways houses are built

Amazing! I understand that you have a course where you teach how to make a fire pit, can you tell me where to access it?

What about the rain effects? I am looking to build a barn in my agricultural area and the constant irrigation around the three sides of the house coupled with a heavy monsoon spell every summer is making me nervous. Please shed some light in the water retention related concerns.

Do I need to buy cement for mixing with sand and dirt? And is rammed earth wall strong/ solid enough??

Great work and easy understand. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.

I appreciate your videos! I started ramming to make a small bricks for testing like you showed us on other video. Now I’m making bench size rammed earth wall. Still with hand ramming. A question, many people seems to putting Plasticure for waterproofing. Do you mix anything like that into your mix? I wish I can come to your workshop however I’m in Australia!!!

How long should it cure before you take the forms off?

I wonder if this could be used for building a root cellar. The exterior walls would function like the walls of a foundation.

My Question is where does one purchase this pneumatic Tamper? It's not something you find at Home Depot or Lowe's and can rammed earth walls and homes survive very long in Sub-Arctic regions like Fort Kent Maine where Negative Farenheit Temps are common

I don't have an air compressor and rental for the time needed is as much as buying one. (Both out of my price range.) I'm one man building an entire house by myself, so hand tamping is out. Can you recommend an Electric tamper? I see "Demolition Hammers" with flat plates advertised and think that that may be the best solution but am concerned about shaft length being too short. What's your best advice? Update. Bought an extreme power electric Demolition hammer from AMAZON. It's heavy but will work well. Good length.

Can you go over foundation for these?

How would you attached a wood fence to this? Is that even possible? Can you drill into the rammed earth or will you just get cracks?

Be interested to know if this holds up in all climates or only in dry ones.

Quick note, electric demolition hammers don't need a compressor and work really well.

can it be used in very wet environments?

Excellent video guys!