Thought this was pretty cool. In my arid environment, I'm considering giving this a shot!


Sandbag House

Ever since I first learned of sandbag houses I have dreamt of building one.

This website sells long sandbags for just that purpose:
http://calearth.org/shop...led-Superadobe-bag-rolls

Any other suppliers you know of? I don't know any suppliers in Europe, but I can't
imagine sandbags are that hard too find. I just wouldn't know where to start looking.


May very well be the cheapest way to build a really decent house. The biggest expense &
hurdle is buying land and getting a building permit.
And the building of the house seems to be quite easy too.

Yes! I've been looking into this as well, extremely cheap and easy looking.
When I finally get to buy some land I will build one. I'm determined

sandbags are cool but hempcrete is cooler

Not so, Ayalove.

Hempcrete carries a signifigant carbon footprint. Produced far away, and shipped to your location, contains lime/and or portland cement..which are materials that are baked at extremely high temperatures, burning huge amounts of fossil fuels. For example, to produce one ton of concrete, 1800 pouns (just under one ton) of co2 is released into the air. Hempcrete on the other hand, it a little bit better.

If commercial builders got into hempcrete it would be a small step in the generally correct direction....DIYers would do better to look towards non-manufactured, hand made, earth based products.




Building with whatever type of soil one has at one's disposal, is an alternative that makes a lot of sense. Sand bags seem very cool, however. I'd personally go with cob, unless of courser I lived in a more arid clime, inwhich case sandbags would look attractive.

Wow thank you for pointing this out! i had no clue how much energy was put into making it, i guess i was blinded by the hype surrounding it. While i still think some of the benefits are attractive, such as how it hardens and how its easier to construct vs concrete, sandbags now seem like a much greener alternative. Ive been thinking about building a church of sorts on a piece of land with hempcrete but i guess that idea is out .
So with these sandbags how does one go about finishing the product? Like once i put down the bags how do you go about finishing it into a wall? Hmm guess i need to do some more research!
Love + Light

I wrote off hempcrete a couple years ago...however, I just did some more reading. Perhaps I am too quick to dismiss hempcrete. I generally consider any product that has a smoke stack in it's history to be not-green. A general belief of mine is that you can not manufacture something and expect it to be truly green.


At this point I'll just say that I may have been wrong.

I'm still skeptical about "carbon negative" claims (those numbers are hard to proove in the best of cases)....and aesthetically, I'd rather build with what is at my feet. This hempcrete however does not seem too bad.


Forgive me my knee-jerk response.

Then the church is on!

Let's go off-topic a bit.

Care to discuss your church a bit?


For me, the dmt experience has frequently taken a religious bent, visions of temples and gods and what-not. I'd love to read about this concept of yours, anything you'd be comfortable sharing.

sure. basically want to make a place where one can shed the mental burden of the institution. I find the institution is the cause of most unhappiness and it leads to a fatal disease called "taking life to seriously." My goals in building the church is to allow for science and spirituality to evolve simultaneously without feeling pressure to make things concrete and exact. The church wouldn't be anything that probably hasn't already been discussed before on the nexus but I want to start putting my money and effort towards bringing something to life. It will probably be small but right now I'm looking for a piece of property to purchase and ill take it from there. While i call it a church I just want it to be a place where people can come together and feel hope and a sense of community. I'd like for it to be as green and as self sustainable as possible besides that there isn't anything i specifically want it to embody and there aren't any beliefs I want to establish and force feed to people. Oh wait there is one belief I want to push on people. SMOALK more !
hehe happy days
Love + Light

How much would it cost to build one of those sandbag houses?

about 2,000 for an entire house

The guy said you can build it even in a rain enviroment with some added technique to the building so I imagine that would cost extra. I think that these building are really designed for arid enviroments and you may have water issues if you build somewhere thats not.

Still wondering: does anyone know a European supplier of Sandbags? Or bags that can be used for
the same purpose? I thought the cal-earth website's bags were rather expensive, or would that be
the general price for such bags?

Also I've heard someone mention that Burlap bags may be used as well to build a house. I was just
worrying; Would burlap be strong enough to face the elements for years...even if it was covered in
protective layers of water repelling material?

Another option would be to buy some agricultural tarp and make bags out of them yourself.
Only I haven't a clue of the price of this tarp.

I'm just wondering what the cheapest option would be to build a sandbag house.

Other countries use burlap sacks without issues all the time. Once the earthcrete inside cures, I doubt you'd have much to worry about as far as the elements go. Also the burlap will be encased in outer mortar which will make it air tight. No air or UV rays getting to the burlap should prevent it from deteriorating.

I'm really looking forward to building either a cob house or a eco dome at some point in my life.

Earthcrete? sounds interresting. What is it? A form of Cob?

Can mortar protect it from years of rainfall? What about
high temperature differences (day/night, summer/winter)
for years...would that not crack up walls made of such
materials?

Because I want to build a really durable house. If it is durable
that would be great, because I can probably get burlap sacks for
free or really cheap.

Earthcrete is basically the SuperAdobe material where you mix 9 parts Earth with 1 part lime or concrete and it sets as a hard brick. The burlap would basically give something for the outside mortar to stick to better and keep the SuperAdobe material together long enough for it to cure into a brick.

If you were to use a higher ratio of concrete in the outside mortar and maybe spray it with some kind of sealant you shouldn't have too many issues but I don't know for sure. I guess it depends on how much rain you get and the type of mortar/sealant used.

There are a lot of options so your best bet would probably to try to find someone in your area that is already doing something similar and pick their brain as to what's worked for them and what hasn't. What works out in Arizona obviously isn't going to work as well in New England...

I wish ya the best of luck and look forward to seeing your progress!

Seems alot cheaper than using 100% concrete, allthough using 100% concrete might not be too expensive either.
It may cost more, take a little bit longer, but will result in a hell-proof house.

Another option:
I've fantasized about making large concrete lego blocks. If I'd make one every week then it wouldn't
be long before I could build quite an impressive house with them. Might not even require cement.
Roofsupport structures & floors of multi-story buildings could be made of wood/bamboo.
Roofcover could also be made from wood/bamboo, coated in many layers of sealant.
May cost more than sandbags or cob, but should be relatively affordable and easy to build. And
significantly more tough/durable.


Proper Roof structures are very important. If wood is used, then it better be covered in a really
thick layer of sealant to withstand hot/cold cycles, humidity and rainfall in the long run.
A great sealant for such a purpose would be Epoxy, but unfortunately Epoxy is quite pricey.

Are there any similair sealants that are equally effective, yet more affordable that anyone knows of?

I think you mean DIY as in Do It Yourself instead of DYI which could mean Do Yourself In, something I hope none of you do.

Cool thread. I've been interested in these types of projects for a long time. Hopefully I'll be able to build my own some day.