Compressed Earth Block | Stucco

After two years of using earth plaster and sealing it with linseed oil, we decided to stucco our house. As much as we wanted to use these green building techniques they just did not hold up to our climate. So we chose to stucco our home. Since this is not a traditional build we show you how we attached our stucco to our wall. Some may ask "why not just put concrete on the wall. If one does this the two materials eventually will separate. We are pleased with the Stucco and how it has stabilized our home temperature even more

[@StanislavG.]

Hey there Jacob! Could you please do a video about the production of the earth blocks themselves? There's a lot of videos about building with them but none are actually going into depth about making the blocks, the equipment used, the raw material processing and such. Could be extremely helpful (and probably KZbin's first). Cheers and god bless.

[@SustainableLiving]

You got it, I have some raw data that we captured this last week on making block and I am looking forward to getting this out.

[@StanislavG.]

@@SustainableLiving Can't wait to see :)

[@bestill6505]

I'm also interested in this. As a single Christian Mother moving out semi rural Ghana. Found a earthen block making machine... But struggling to find a current/up to date video on making bricks.

[@bestill6505]

It would be great to hear from your wife and her experience as a woman/wife/mother building a home. Watching from London UK, God bless

[@ladysaw999]

@@bestill6505 you can get them made for you in ghana.

[@rongray4118]

Great video - As Always! I will be insulating with aircrete instead of the polystyrene. Love the Vids!!

[@SustainableLiving]

Thanks for following us

[@StanislavG.]

I would not recommend doing that. Aircrete is very hygroscopic and would lose it's insulating properties when exposed to moisture. Mold growth is also an issue.

[@rajeevkhandelwal3208]

WOW beautiful 😊👌👍save nature 🌿🚩 FROM INDIA 🌺🙏 THANKS FOR MAKING THIS HOUSE AND VIDEO .. RAJIV KHANDELWAL

[@luisg211]

I love this video! Have you every thought of paving your driveway or back patio with earth blocks? It’s been a while since you last posted videos of your property. Would be great to see how the property (inside and out) has evolved going into 2024!

[@RobertSmith-ub6tk]

Wow awesome

[@henryblockmachinemanufactu5895]

hi

[@nub9688]

@6:08, Next time, safety glasses for both you and the camera operator....the kids can stay inside behind a different wall, hehe...

[@amorfo9127]

Great proyect, I'm thinking doing something Similar but with plástic clips instead of wire to attach (to avoid thermal Bridges), my blocks Will be like a normal brick dimensions so I was thinking doing doble wall with a cavity (semi-ventilated) in the middle so in the internal wall I can benefit from the breathable material and in the outside wall insulation like you do it, Is this a good idea?, I would love to ear your thoughts about it before doing anything, and another cuestión: how it Is holding the stucco after 4 months?, Any cracks or recomendations?, I really apreciate all the info Man, keep doing grate!

[@SustainableLiving]

My opinion would be that unless you live in an extremely cold area I do not think the thermal bridges of the wire will really make a difference. The block is of greater thermal mass so it would make sense to me that it would not be that much of an effect. The stucco is holding up well, we put up a synthetic coat over the stucco and is seems to be doing well. The guy I hired said we did not need any stress joints to control cracking, I should have insisted that we put them in as I do have a few cracks. As you know the one thing you can count on is stress cracking from concrete that is why joints or put in to control where it cracks. So other than that it is doing fine, they are not anything major, if we were to paint this synthetic coat it would cover them up. Hope this helps good luck with your project.

[@SustainableLiving]

Also for doing the cavity in the wall, if it is like my friends house where he laid two courses of wall and left a gap between the two walls then you will have very stable temperatures.

[@shanestapley1282]

@@SustainableLiving How big was the gap between the two walls of your friends place? What’s the overall wall thickness? Did he really go more than two feet overall width? I can see your house has 12 inch thick walls. For a second wall at the same width plus a gap, that’d be one heck of a thick wall. Sounds like a HUGE amount of work. That’s double the blocks needed for exterior walls. I wonder if they would be tied together somehow? How did he do the concrete cap?

[@shanestapley1282]

Mr. Johnson, You should know that your videos have inspired me to do as you have done. I now have my brand new Earth Tek / Adobe Machine BLM-12-8A4 block maker and look forward to the success you’ve had. I’m in NE Arizona in the Snowflake area. So when I heard you reference Northern Arizona, I thought to myself, “Yeah Man, his area looks very much like mine, if he’s able to do it, I should be able to too.” Thanks so much for the vids. Yes, too have scoured the internet and KZbin looking for info. Colorado Earth is awesome as well. I’m curious to know if you’ve experienced any significant expansion/contraction issues with your soil. I have a pretty high clay content and Colorado Earth (can’t remember the guy’s name, Jim something) had a bunch of vids on soil testing and such. Lastly, what made you opt for stucco over say a Lime/Sand plaster mix? I’m guessing it’s the insulation benefit of the foam board. I’ve been wondering about that myself as we have high wind here. Thermal mass is awesome, but high wind still takes a toll.

[@SustainableLiving]

Thank you for the positive feedback. That has been one of our primary goals is to give back and hopefully Inspire others. Yes you are very close to home to us. There is more to our story that we haven't created video yet about us choosing Earth block which involves permits or no permits. Short story is we opted to go without a permit and it worked out in our favor. Too long for me to explain in a small response here. Hopefully we can do a video about it. As for expansion of the clay yes that is a huge concern in this area that we live in. Fortunately where we built our home my grandparents and my parents already built homes here and we were familiar with the soil conditions so we did not need any soil testing. We lived in town and a house that we were financing at the time had soil issues and there were special Foundation / footings put in to deal with this issue. I would definitely recommend getting your soil tested so you would know for sure what that would be for your home build. So to answer your question we have not had any expansion issues with clay and settling issues since we built our home. We poured are footings and Foundation five years ago and we have been living in our house for the last four years and we have not seen any settling issue thank goodness. As to traditional lime plaster we chose stucco just because it was a convenience factor for us. I tried to find traditional lime plaster and that seemed to be a challenge. Also we had tried doing a mud mixture plaster and sealing the material with linseed oil for the first two years. We found that this was not very weather resistant and required lots of maintenance. During winter months, we would see condensation in the corners of our house which we did not want any mold issues in the future so we wanted to completely seal our walls off. So we ended up putting the foam board and stucco up and then doing a synthetic covering of the stucco to ensure our walls were protected. The thermal stability was just a secondary benefit to the primary reason why we were doing it. Again thank you so much for your positive feedback we do get negative feedback from individuals what does discourage us. Our intent is not to be the be all information on this product. We know that we have lots of gaps in our knowledge but we want to share what we know and what has worked for us and hopefully it'll help others out.

[@nedlyest]

@@SustainableLiving I have a couple acres out the concho hwy, did you have any issues with the county? The 35% they want for a building permit is highway robbery.

[@hltron5781]

@@nedlyest 35% of what though? 35% of the estimated build cost? that's crazy

[@nedlyest]

@@hltron5781 that's is what the county assessor told me for a permit. They said it's for anything, from building a building to even a trailer.

[@shanesmith3091]

Hello Jacob, I like your videos and instruction very much. I am just about to build, hopefully with an Interlocking Stabilised CEB, and the exterior walls will be double block (L 300 x W 150 x H 100mm - sorry, for you that's 12"x6"x4"), with a 4" cavity that will have 3" of Polyisourate foam board (closed-cell foam) in the cavity. I hope to render the inside and outside with cement/lime plaster. To enable adhesion I was going to scratch the surface of the blocks with nails protruding from a piece of timber, or something similar. Have you got any advice for me on this type of project?

[@SustainableLiving]

From my understanding scratch coats are a practise used but I do not have any further suggestions

[@seymorepoohtang3080]

What was the total cost of this build? Not including land cost

[@mikeloki2064]

Why didn't CEBs work in your climate? I've seen examples of CBEs as bathroom walls that get wet without any breakdown and don't understand why your exterior walls would be eventually breaking down.

[@mrx9920]

Did you plaster the inside wall house?

[@RVBadlands2015]

What type of panels.

[@Cp3659]

If you would have used the wire would you have poked it through the insulation?

[@SustainableLiving]

Yes and then fastened to the stucco wire.

[@Cp3659]

@@SustainableLiving thanks