Pictures of the first trip:

Dale, Doug, myself Brandon

First trip to the site:

The goal of the first trip was to take a look at the area, topography, soil conditions, access to the site, and to get a better understanding of what we have available to work with. We met Doug and Linda, the owners of the site that are interested in building a rammed earth house, at the site on May 16/2013. This was the second time that we had met them and both parties are eager to start the project, Doug has been collecting various items over the years to help get the project going and was more than happy to share his ideas for the site. The major goal of the first trip was to starting testing some soil and to see what was naturally available and what would have to be trucked in. So Dale, Doug, and myself  started by taking a tour of the site, looking at different features, digging a couple test holes and exposing some banks, all the tests turned out different results.

3D Wall Detail

Here is a graphic I made using revit and gimp. It shows what type of wall I will ideally be building this summer.

Update: SIREWALL course

As outlined in my research proposal i would like to take a course through SIREWALL, a company that builds rammed earth structures based in salt spring island, on the process of building with rammed earth and the benifit to the occupants. The closest course date is in April, but i think that might be a busy month so i will try to take it in May. I have emailed the company for more information on the course, such as if im still able to registar and i will post the progress in a coment below when i get a response.

Research Thesis:

How can rammed earth building techniques be applied in the thompson-cariboo region with ameuter builders with little or no experience?

Interesting look into rammed earth houses by David Suzuki

Month Forecast

The plan for the next month or so will be to do some experimental testing of building a rammed earth wall. Some small sample test bricks will be made using a wooden form and mallet and local soil will be tested and used in this process. The experimentation will be done to find the best method of soil composition testing that will be later used on site and to get some practical experience testing soil. The basic jar test method will be used for this stage of the research and the use of professional help will be determined from this testing. Bellow is a sample of what the testing will determine.

http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/exper1/exper1.htm