A Few Small Changes

I have modified a few small things:

I will be running the cold water into the house underneath the foundation and store the pressure tank inside. This is because cold winter days with no running water worry me.

I am going to add two small 2x2 windows into the living room above the cob bench. They will share the same lintel.

I emailed Kelly at earthbagbuilding.com about the the stability of my walls against the below-grade soil pressure. He thought it would be fine, just suggested that I add buttressing around the patio door. My solution is to incorporate things I was already doing--the stairs, the bath platform--into the primary construction of the walls.

Also, from spending way too much time on his and Owen Geiger's earthbag blog, I found out about a different way to build with earthbags--hyperadobe, which is something somebody in Brazil came up with. Same everything except they use the same mesh bags that potatoes or apples come in. This means there is no need for barbed wire. Since I first began considering earthbag building, I have had continuous nightmares and preoccupations about the use of barbed wire. I have been positive somebody's eye would be taken out. This is like the biggest weight ever off of my shoulders.

That's about it.