[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: adobe question

[Lawrence Lile]

A guy I knew had a single asphalt adobe brick he was showing off to me.
He left it out in the rain in Missouri (>35" rain per year, mostly
dumped 2" at a time in gullywashers) and it was unaffected.  I'd say the
asphalt would make Adobe more widely usable.  You could say the same
thing for a big overhang on the roof and a layer of lime plaster on the
surface, though.  

 
 
Lawrence Lile, P.E., LEED AP


-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Alan
Abrams
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:39 PM
To: 'Linda Lloyd'; 'Greenbuilding'
Subject: [BULK] Re: [Greenbuilding] adobe question
Importance: Low

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
they had an adobe house on HGTV last night and the guy showed how he
made
his blocks and he added asphalt emulsion to the mix ????

I thought adobes were all natural materials
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Back in the seventies, in the Espanola Valley of NM, I built my first
house
with adobes; a 600 sf cottage using about 2000 bricks.  (I carried them
100
at a time in my '61 Ford half ton until I bent the rear axel on the
washboard road, thenceforth 75 at a time.)  They were made a mile up the
road using the local hardpan soil shoveled into a tag-along mortar mixer
(by
some unnamed alembristas, working for the local patron for the summer).
I
think I paid $0.15 a brick.  

The mix included some chopped straw and nothing else.  The 10"x14"x3
1/2"
thick sun dried bricks could be held waist high and dropped to the
ground
(usually) without breaking.  I made the mortar on site from a similar
mix,
sans straw.