This video gives a good overview of what it takes to build a compressed earth block wall. Our president, Ryan Runge, shows how he built an internal CEB wall on the 1,000 square foot home he built in 2019. An AECT 2001A Impact https://aectearthblock.com/impact-2001a-series is used to make and feed the earth blocks right to the wall. Because these are un-stabilized CEBs, they can be laid right on the wall without curing. You will notice that there are some different colored earth blocks, as we were experimenting with some different recipes; because this wall was internal (not exposed to weather elements) and not load-bearing, the blocks didn't need to be as homogeneous...also because we were ultimately covering this wall in an earthen plaster, aesthetics were not a consideration. Note the use of the AECT Block Cutter: https://aectearthblock.com/aect-block-cutter
Using an AECT Impact 2001A machine to produce 300 (6" x 12") CEBs per hour
Laying 6" x 12" cement-stabilized CEBs on a house in San Antonio, Texas
Laying 10" x 14" un-stabilized CEBs and putting in a window frame on a commercial building in San Antonio, Texas
Building a CEB arch using un-stabilized 6" x 12" compressed earth blocks
This video shows how to cut grooves for electrical wires in cement-stabilized compressed earth block construction. Cement-stabilized blocks are very hard and require the use of an angle grinder with a masonry blade and a drill with a large masonry bit. Once you get a process going, it only takes about four minutes per electrical outlet. After the grooves are cut and the wires laid in, you will cover the cut with whatever wall covering you have chosen. In this case, we used an earthen plaster to cover up the wall, as shown at the end of the video.
This is a nice demonstration of affixing wood (in this case, window trim) to a cement-stabilized compressed earth block wall. These CEBs, even though they're stabilized with only 8% cement, are as strong as and more dense than traditional masonry. That being the case, you have to be prepared with the right tools to make life easy on yourself when working with this type of masonry.
Incidentally, as an alternative to using anchors, as seen in this video, we had a really good experience with the Wall Dog mounting screws shown here: http://anchors.dewalt.com/anchors/products/light-duty/wall-anchors/wall-dog/ These screws have threads that are spaced far apart; this allows them to grab into the compressed earth block really well.
In this video, our good friend Tim White shows us how to apply an all-natural earthen coating to our compressed earth block walls. This plaster was made from the earth we dug up for the rubble-trench foundation on this build, along with some sand. Earth plaster is just one of many options for a compressed earth block construction project. We like it because it's inexpensive, eco-friendly, breathable, easy to work with...and beautiful!
In this video our president, Ryan Runge, applies an American Clay finish coat to the compressed earth block walls of this home. We chose an off-white color for this build, but you can choose from hundreds of colors at: https://www.americanclay.com/
This product is all-natural, eco-friendly, breathable, extremely easy to work with...and creates a beautiful finish!
You don't have to have an earthen floor on a CEB home, but if you want to go that route, this series of videos shows you how it's done. In this first video, our friend Tim White shows how to trowel on the base layer (about 2.5" thick) of earth. Note that we used an AECT MX10 Mixer https://aectearthblock.com/mx10-soil-mixing-machine to mix the wet earthen floor material. This mixer is really designed to mix drier (about 5% moisture) earthen material for making compressed earth blocks, but we found out it's versatile enough to mix this wet material as well.
This video shows how to trowel a 3/4" finish layer of material onto an earthen floor. This is the final leveling layer of the floor which is applied after the 2.5" base layer (see Laying an Earthen - Floor Part 1) has had a chance to dry all the way through. Once this layer is dry (after about 1 week), a hot linseed oil coating will be applied (see Laying an Earthen Floor - Part 3).
In this final video of the series on Laying an Earthen Floor, we show you how to apply a hot (over 200 degrees) linseed oil coating to the finished earth floor. The linseed oil helps to create a durable, water-proof floor that will last for decades.
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