The Plan

Coming up with this final plan has been a very circular process. I began the design from the bottom up. Having no prior experience with earthbag building, knowing no one who does it, and coming up with my own experimental design means that I have had to figure everything out myself. Imagine taking hundreds of pieces of different soup recipes in order to come up with your own egg scramble, which better work because you're cooking for a thousand people, with no trial run. Balancing the foundation--which, since the house is sunken two feet, is part of the structure itself--and the subsequent concerns of moisture, insulation, strength to combat the push of the earth etc. is enough in and of itself. From there I had to figure out the interior layout for two reasons. First off, so that I could build the water/greywater, flues and electricity entrances/exits into the building design, made that much more complicated by its buried aspect. Secondly, and just as important, I had to make sure that my ideas about plumbing and solar water heating would actually work with the design so that I didn't get to the roof and realize I can only have outdoor plumbing and no heating.

I spent considerable amounts of time building up and mapping out the design when I finally got to the final roof plan. It didn't work and made everything fall apart, or so it seemed. To make a long story short, I had kept the interior span at 16 feet throughout the house because I didn't want to have to use vigas (the logs that will be holding up my roof) that were larger than an 8 inch diameter. However, the way in which I had planned to place them was not physically possible. Putting them in in reality would have involved spans of more than 20 feet and a considerable cost increase. Also, I wasn't sure about the structural integrity of that roof design and since I have nothing but my own wits to ensure that my roof doesn't kill me and my first-born child while we're sleeping, I chose to modify the house design.

At first it seemed like a big blow and I decided to make an unburied rectangle instead. It seemed like I had regressed significantly. That was definitely not the case, however. In the end, I kept everything the same except I made the curve less intense, which in reality was the design I had been drawing before I made my clay model a couple months ago. Also, it allowed me to see a HUGE oversight in my passive solar design. I essentially needed to flip the house, putting north where south was and vice versa. That led me to significantly change the interior design (more misplaced feelings of unraveling all my hard work) ending up with something that works better. As a huge plus, changing that design has solved some plumbing issues that were still twirling around in my mind.