Miscellaneous Adobe Q and A's
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Q: My husband and I own 5 acres up in the Uintahs. We have been talking about building a cabin for ages, but just today, when seeing an Arizona hacienda on TV, we both jumped up and said "that's it!" Our land has an abundance of red dirt (clay?) My husband is a cement finisher, so that will help. Next step - what kind of foundation? Do the bricks need to be baked, or just air-dried? Can you refer us to some how-to books? How do you rough-in plumbing, septic tanks, etc. Thanks.

A: Whew, Georgia's question is more a request for a text on homesteading! She might want to join our adobe discussion and owner/builder support group at <adobeATyahoogroups.com>. Might be clay. Usually the red dirts have silt in them too. Just have to make some test bricks to see if it works. Lots of times, adding sand to the soil gives a good brick. Standard concrete footing down to the frost line with a stem wall that gets 6-8 inches above the exterior finish grade. The stem wall needs to be the width of the adobe brick and the footing should be 4-8 inches wider than that. Air dried, sun cured. Adobe build it yourself, by P.G. McHenry, Jr. University of Arizona Press about $25.00. (Available at the link on this page.). Lots of books out there on plumbing. For septic tanks, start with the state to see what the regulations are. As for etc, we are just now writing that handbook. PS Northern NM Community College here in El Rito has the Department of Southwest Construction. We are teaching homebuilders in two semesters. (one in a pinch)

Q: We have a contact in Quebec who built a home out of straw, clay, lime sand and rockwool. Blocks 4'x4'x1' are 5 lbs. Had an article in Harrowsmith April 1996. EXCITING , AND IN-EXPENSIVE (WELL, 65K , Canadian, FOR THE COMPLETED HOME OF 2000 SF) However, we are having trouble really getting some facts about the veracity and soundness of using the product. Anything similar come to mind?

A: (Kelly) One approach to making adobe blocks is with a Cinva Ram press, which is described on this page. I have a friend in New Mexico who used one to make a house over ten years ago that is very comfortable and durable. It cost him under $1,000 and about a year's time. There is an interview with him in the Sampler of Alternative Homes video. Many places do allow construction with adobe, and there are several books that describe how to proceed.

Q: I have been trying to find out more information on concrete homes. How practical are they, how green are they? How do they differ from adobe in durability and sustainability?

A: (Kelly) In general, concrete is not a very green material, for several reasons: 1) A tremendous amount of carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) is released into the atmosphere during its manufacture. 2) A lot of transportation of materials is involved in both the manufacturing process, and then getting the cement to its final destination. 3) Concrete also must be reinforced with steel, which has its own environmental consequences.

Adobe, on the other hand, is much more environmentally benign. It is basically earth, which can often be obtained on the building site. All you need to make adobe blocks is some clay, sand, straw and water. In some instances a small amount of cement or asphalt emulsion can be added to the adobe, to "stabilize" it in circumstances where it is subject to direct weather. Generally adobe walls are protected with substantial eaves and foundations.

Q: I live in England and am about to buy a house that is in a poor state of repair. The bathroom is located under the stairs and is very cramped...if you wanted to sit in the bath away from the tap end you'd hit your head on the recess! I saw a style of bathroom I liked whilst looking at earthships. The bath was formed from what appeared to be adobe, with some sort of glaze inside it to make it smooth. Would adobe be suitable for this? Do I have to cover it with a sealant to stop it absorbing water and can you paint it after it has set? I'm looking to make a deep, round bath - that won't have to be long so I won't hit my head! Whilst I appreciate that in still owning a conventional house I'm missing the point entirely of what earthships stand for, I would still like to use natural materials. I hope this question doesn't sound too silly!

A: I love adobe more than most anyone. However, an adobe bathtub is a very bad idea for the same reason that a stone, tile, or concrete tub is terrible. The masonry requires too much heat to warm up and robs the heat from the water. Only rich folks who don't care how much heat they waste should have such tubs. Most masonry materials have a specific heat of about 0.2 BTUS/Degree Fahrenheit/pound. Cast iron of which many tubs are made has a Sp Ht of about 0.05 and the metal shell of the tub is relatively thin so not that much heat is lost to the metal. However, think about sitting back against the back of the metal tub as the water fills on a cold day. It takes a real man or woman. Multiply that by twenty to get the heat robbing effect of adobe. But cheer up. That is why adobe is the world's number one heat storage device in passive solar homes.

Q: I would like to know where I can find affordable house plans/blueprints for having an adobe home built.

A: "Adobe Homes for Today, Flexible..." Laura and Alex Sanchez and "The Small Adobe House" Agnesa Reeve.

Q: This is going to be a silly question. Do you know where I might be able to purchase a miniature version of an adobe house. I ran across 1 here in Philadelphia, at a thrift shop, but I couldn't buy it- it didn't have a price tag on it. When I came back for it then next day- it was gone. If you know where I can buy 1, pleas let me know.

A: Someone was selling them through the New Mexico Magazine not long ago. They can be found in various gift and art shops in Santa Fe and Taos. Time for a visit to NM.

Q: I want to avoid the use of plastics at all costs (which rules out a polyethylene barrier) and I was thinking maybe a wax coating would help as a moisture barrier.

A: Might work. Try it and report back. You will be the first.

Q: Hi, I'm not sure if you are the correct expert since my question is not specifically about adobe, but about the vigas which usually go with adobe homes. I live in Las Cruces, NM in an adobe home with wood vigas. These vigas have badly deteriorated due to both sun (vertical and horizontal exposures) and water (primarily the horizontal exposures). I am about to apply some sort of protect ant to this wood and need advice on what product to use (the wood was previously stained) and what process to follow. I'd like to find a product with at least a 15-year guarantee.

A: Welcome to New Mexico, the skin cancer capitol of the USA. Cheer up, Argentina has a worse problem than us since they are close to the big ozone hole in the Southern Hemisphere. Basically, the wonderful, sunny days of Southern New Mexico carry a huge dose of ultraviolet that just boils away anything chemical. I have an interest in boats and lots of paint companies specializing in marine paints/varnishes brag how long their products hold up in the Florida sun or the Sea of Cortez. Those same paints/varnishes used on boats in NM are gone in a year or two. About the only things that hold up to the sun are metals, glass, stucco and the vertical surfaces of timbers. The best protection for wood is the wood itself as it ages. That means that about 1/4 of an inch gets eaten up but then the wood stabilizes. One-inch trim on New Mexico houses disappears while two-inch trim erodes but gets stable at about 1-1/2 inch. The problem with vigas is that most species of trees develop splits and some species twist as they age. If the splits occur on the top of the viga, then the water just moves on down into the viga and lengthwise, too. Often the water is conducted to the interior of the adobe wall or in your case elsewhere along the viga. Some very impermeable products used on wood can backfire. Once some small pinhole develops, moisture gets in and then cannot easily get out resulting in accelerated rotting or the impermeable coating falling off in chunks as its bond to the wood is broken.

Q: Some of the horizontally exposed wood is so badly deteriorated that I am applying epoxy wood rebuilder to the top (exposed) portion of the viga, which crumbled away about halfway down (this applies to only about a 3-4' section of the total 24' length because this particular section was exposed while the rest was not). These are vigas which are structural for the porch roof but where the original design left an opening for a planter and had the vigas continuing through the opening. The frame around the opening was poorly done and caused water damage to the vigas as well as poor maintenance causing sun damage. Is this okay?

A: It is not. If there is no visible sagging of the roof, you are probably okay but something needs to be done to stop further deterioration It's that or replace the viga. Probably not necessary, but if it comes to that, it is not always as difficult as you might imagine.

Q: Mostly, I need advice on the best product to protect all the remaining wood (vigas, wood windows, etc.) from sun damage, which will last as long as possible!

A: I am working on a photo essay on the evolution of canales in and around Taos where the animal has gone through the most change. When that is done, I will start a photo essay on the evolution of exposed vigas. There are two solutions that work. One is to cut off exposed vigas, chisel out the first inch or so into the wall and then stucco over the hole. I have done this myself on several houses. In an extreme case, the School for the Deaf in Santa Fe, steel pipes of different diameters with welded on hatchet marks on the ends were welded to plates which were then bolted to the wall where the wood vigas had been. You can see them if you visit Santa Fe. The other solution is to build a metal cap over the top half of the vigas. They are galvanized metal, vinyl coated metal such as Pro Panel, or in the most wonderful form, copper. Copper in about 26 to 31 gauge thickness is not too expensive and you can work it yourself including soldering on a flange where the viga meets the wall to form a vertical flashing. These caps can be seen in Santa Fe and all over Taos where they have risen to high art with lacy cutouts and other decorations along their lower edges. The important thing about the caps is that they should be nailed or screwed to the vigas on the sides, not on top and the fit should less than snug without the application of caulk or roof tar. This allows air to circulate and moisture an opportunity to leave when it does sneak in. That is just as important to the metal as it is to the viga so the former won't rust while the latter doesn't rot. Properly detailed, this will give you a 22-year fix. It should work also for your vigas in the planter opening.

Q: I am searching for home plans for a large family. We hope to build with adobe, passive solar. We live in Arizona and feel sure it would be criminal to deny the sun an opportunity to serve our home. We are not wealthy, and can not afford to custom design with an architect. We need at least 5 bedrooms. Is there anyone out there selling stock plans of this size? Any information you have would be greatly appreciated.

A: Laura and Alex Sanchez have a book, Adobe Homes for Today. It costs about $25 and has plans for a number of adobe homes, most with a solar feature. From the book you can order plans on a CD at again about $25 per design. With AutoCad you can modify the plans before printing them. Some of the plans allow for future expansion and many allow trimming the house out in three styles. How you are going to handle the solar aspect is highly dependent on your location in AZ as a house that would do well in Flagstaff will bomb out in Yuma.

Q: I plan on building a small (+/- 1800 s.f.) home in Glenwood, NM in the next couple of years. It's in the early planning now. I am considering an adobe home. Have you seen any cost comparisons of adobe construction vs. stick framed construction.

A: The best information on cost comparisons is from Vishu Magee at Archetype Design: www.archetype-design.com . Usually a good frame builder can get a building up more cheaply than an adobe building. But the cost difference should not be too great insofar as the cost of walls is usually only 7 to 11% of the total construction budget. What usually runs the cost of an adobe home up is all the other choices that owners make for premium items in the other budget line items. Often, for instance, the cost of interior plaster is equal to or greater than the cost of the adobe walls. The solution is to omit plaster and have exposed or lightly mud washed walls which can easily be painted. The list goes on.

Q: I currently live in an adobe brick home that has mold and mildew growing on the inside walls. Can this be successfully and completely removed? How? There is no active heating system in the house presently, the roof leaks (soon to be fixed), and there is plaster for the ceilings which also have mold. My concern is can this be stopped and completely eliminated? Will the process pose a danger to the structure? The bricks are painted white inside, natural outside. I am unsure of the type of paint used.

A: Sounds as if you have a major case of moisture incursion into the home, probably from the roof leak. If the house is not heated, that further favors the mold and mildew. Hopefully the house is on a proper foundation that rises six- or eight-inches above the outside ground level. Sometimes moisture can creep up a foundation through capillary action and into the adobe walls. A moisture barrier on top of the foundation would have stopped this. If no barrier, and moisture does move up from the foundation, it rarely goes much higher than a foot in an adobe wall since adobe does not support capillary action as well as concrete. If you can get the house dried out mold and mildew go away. I myself don't worry about M and M nearly as much as modern alarmists do. In some cases M and M is a reason to call in the environmental remediation squads to deal with it. I don't know if you should believe them or me. I spent years crawling around in, on and under houses and I survived most likely out of pure ignorance of any danger.

Once the moisture source is found and stopped, you can go over walls and ceilings with a solution of one Clorox in ten water. A stiff cleaning brush or sponge should do the trick. A second pass with a solution of one pound 20-Mule Team Borax in two quarts water painted on the wall will soak in a bit if the paint is not too thick and suppress future spore development. If there is a cavity above the ceiling, there may be more M and M there to deal with and there could be damaged insulation.The clorox/Borax process will not harm the structure but it might not be thorough enough to please a thorough-going remediationist.The problem is not the fault of the adobe walls. When there is moisture and cool conditions, most any wall becomes a haven for M and M.

Q: Any suggestions on sealants, preferably local, for brick floors and exposed adobe walls? Albuquerque area.

A: Boiled linseed oil for floors. Okon W-1 or W-2 for walls can be gotten from Wellborn, now Dunn Edwards Paints. The counter men in Santa Fe, at least, can tell you the right choice between 1 and 2 (888-337-2468). Exposed walls can be washed with a terrycloth or sheepskin to consolidate and soften the surface well enough so that no chemicals are needed. Even painted sheetrock walls will dust after several years.

Q: I have just replaced a 265-foot adobe brick wall and have all the whole bricks neatly stacked on pallets to prove it! I live in Las Cruces, NM in a rammed-earth house 12 years old same as the now dismantled adobe wall. Is there any value to these bricks I should be aware of? Can I build small walls, bancos and end up with a smooth hard-plastered surface suitable for sitting on?

A: Bricks should be worth between 50 and 60 cents each sitting on the pallet. They can be used to build anything normally built of adobe. I built several houses of salvaged adobes. They recycle nicely and can certainly be plastered smooth and hard for interior or exterior use. Outside they need a good foundation.

Q: I am looking to build an outdoor patio area in SW Texas, including a fire pit, BBQ, and wood-fired brick oven, all finished or made from adobe. I want to also build simple adobe walls to enclose the area on 3 sides for some privacy. Can you provide me with some reference materials for such a project, particularly the fire pit, BBQ, and brick oven adobe structures? There are countless books on building houses, but I can't find material for outdoor living structures.

A: PG McHenry's books are the best references. "Adobe Build It Yourself", and "Adobe and Rammed Earth Buildings."Sunset Magazine once had a series of books on outdoor structures. None was for adobe in particular, but several were for masonry in general. There is an adobe brick oven monograph somewhere out there on the Internet.

Q: My husband and I are buying an owner built Adobe home with brick flooring in southern Arizona. The few things that I know about the home are: the brick flooring has radiant heat, the inside adobe walls have been painted white, there is a membrane roof on the structure. We know nothing about Adobe. How do we know if we are getting a quality well made adobe home? How do we find an inspector that knows Adobe?

A: Arizona has seen significant adobe construction in the past couple of decades. There should be some very knowledgeable home inspectors in Southern Arizona who understand adobe. If banks or real estate folks can't give you a referral, try Bob Barnes at Old Pueblo Adobe in Tucson. He should know people.

Q: I am in Corfu, Greece (the most rainy area of Greece) and want to build a stone house (as limestone is available on the building plot, combined with adobe material. My architect is for the idea but also doesn't really know a lot about it. So we both have to learn going along. Is the combination of adobe and stone a good option?

A: Stone and adobe combine very nicely. There are two million earthen homes in central Germany so you will not be alone in working with adobe in a damp region. Worldwide, adobe has been used as the mortar between stones when lime or cement were not available. Adobe just by itself works well too.

Q: I live near Phoenix, AZ in an original Craftsman style adobe home that I am fixing up. I love it. I have an empty lot next to it and want to build another adobe on it. A friend owns an adobe that caught fire. It did no harm at all to the adobe structure. I'd like to take the house apart in small sections (small enough for me to lift and move by myself) and reassemble the house on my lot. I only have to move the material a couple of blocks and it will be given to me free for tearing it down. Is there any reason this won't work?

A: Wow! Your concept should work just fine. It might turn out that the sections end up being individual bricks. I have done that myself and its a time honored method to obtain materials for constructing a home. Depending on where you are in the Phoenix area there might be some interest in both the demolition and reconstruction on the part of the county construction authorities. Arizona has a different adobe code for nearly every different county. I don't anticipate any great problem, but as time goes by local codes get more difficult to predict. I certainly hope you will take pictures so that we could post some on quentinwilson.com.

Q: I have a question about the best method of sealing/caulking the windows and lintels in my stabilized (asphalt) adobe house. # years ago I hired an "expert" to do this. He used "great stuff" expanding foam in the grout joints and the topped it w/ silicone caulk. This worked for about 2 years and now they are leaking again. Please advise, step by step of how to fix and avoid further troubles.

A: A lump of coal for me. I would have recommended "Great Stuff" myself. Maybe tufts of fiberglass insulation poked into the voids tightly but not too tightly followed by a topping of a butylene or maybe polysuldife based caulk. The butylene and polysulfide caulks are more moisture impervious than silicon and somewhat more flexible but not as strong.

The three-hundred minds of the adobe group are going to work overtime. The best suggestion so far is mud for caulk. The walls could be moving a bit and the foam will loose its grip on them. If sunlight hits the polyurethane foam it will degrade over a fairly short time and shrink back from the adobe.

My own second reaction is that there will always be problems trying to maintain contact with adobe which is relatively soft and materials such as wood, aluminum, vinyl, glass which are harder and have different rates of expansion/contraction due to changes in temperature and moisture.

It would be helpful for us to know a bit more about your situation:
Location in terms of altitude and local rainfall
It sounds as if you may have exposed, unplastered adobes for your exterior wall. Let us know.
Is this a Pueblo/Santa Fe style warm, round, brown adobe house with parapets or does it have an overhanging roof.
Do the jambs fit into rough bucks in the adobe wall, or are the windows set directly to the masonry.
Is there a lintel over the windows. Are the windows flush or inset from the outside surface of the lintel.
Is the plane of the glass near the outside, middle, or inside plane of the walls.
Does the window have a sill (integral or added by others)  at the bottom or a skirt or apron over the stool.
Is most of the leaking at the top, the sides, the bottom or through the adobe wall itself.
Did the windows come with flanges of aluminum or vinyl
Is there an opportunity for flashing with metal, vinyl, one of the sticky backed state of the art window flashers.
Are the window sash/jambs dark or light colored. It makes a difference in their temperature changes.
Are there Gringo blocks in the adobe wall that might be absorbing moisture.
I left these out. Put 'em where you think they might be needed above:???????????????????????

C: I'm going to attach a photograph of the  windows that is a problem. Also attaching a photo of a crack that has developed at the corner of the garage. The windows are my main concern right now but if you have a suggestion about the crack I'd love hear that too.

The crack following the mortar joint is usually indicative of some movement in the wall. It does not look like a moisture-induced problem. The big window assembly is a mighty wide opening for the lintel. Usually an opening of about 9-feet is the limit for a 6 x10 lintel. That looks like it has a depth of 8-inches and a width equal to the wall. Might be just fine. There are no cracks above to indicate deflection.

Now, to respond to your questions:

The worse leak is exposed most of the day to sunlight.
We're at +/- 1500 feet altitude w/ 12 inches annual rain (no where near this year).
Yes, as you'll see in the photos, the construction is exposed adobe w/o stucco finish.
No parapets, flat roof, no overhang.
Wooden lintels, and inset
Glass is set mid- wall.
Window sill. Yews but see picture. Sill is concrete over adobe blocks.
Foundation footer is poured concrete.
Leaks have occurred in all areas, top, sides and bottom.
Aluminum flashing was installed by the "expert"., didn't work either
Sash and jamb color is dark.
Gringo blocks: unknown, not sure what this is?

Gringo blocks are wood elements replacing a few adobes in the wall surrounding door and window openings so permit nailing or screwing jambs or rough bucks into them.

I assume that what ever the final decision on the leak sealing method, I'll need to clean out the old caulk. So, how critical is the cleanliness. Do I need to have all new surface (scratch down to new block surface).

Cleanliness is not as important as getting down to firm, solid surfaces. Mud, for instance will be happy to bond to adobe and old foam but maybe not silicone caulk. My experience is that for some strange reason, silicone will stick to adobe bricks, but adobe mud does not get a good "bite" on silicone.

I'm thinking that for appearances the new "Mud" should be used at least as the top coat. What is the formula for the mud/mortar?

Dirt and water. 30%clay and 70% sand is the best mix. It can be stabilized with a bit of emulsified asphalt if available or Franklins waterproof carpenter's glue or similar Elmer's product. Try 3 ounces, liquid, per gallon of mud.

Where might I search for the materials?

The ground, hardware store.

Should a "seal coat be applied over the Mud?

No.

(There have been 2 "seal coats" applied in the past, neither seem to have worked. I have the left over of one type, CP500-W. Don't know what the other was but think it may have been some type of Thompson's water sealer.

If a sealer is a complete moisture, vapor barrier it will sooner or later fall off in sections. Any moisture that gets behind it cannot get out, is stopped at the surface and turns the adobe to mud so the sealer just falls off with a molecular layer or two of adobe.

You probably noticed from the photos sent that the house was also painted. If at some time we decide to have the entire house stuccoed(sp), will it be necessary to remove all the paint?

Maybe rough it up a bit especially to counter its vapor/moisture barrier properties.

I was told that all openings (windows, doors) have rebar and/or steel support reinforcement on the sides.

Whoever told you that, cross 'em off your list of friends or just shoot 'em.

Did I tell you that the adobe block is "stabilized with asbestos"?

Holy rusty banjo strings.

Q: What can you tell me about the materials and process of adobe flooring?

A: 30% clay, 70% sand. Mix and pour using the techniques worked out by the concrete floor people. Takes a long time to dry. You get to trowel it again if you don't like the first results. Once it's very dry, linseed oil can be soaked into the top surface to harden it a bit. Don't leave any linseed oil whatsoever on the surface after 20 minutes. It will turn gummy. It's the worlds cheapest, easiest floor. Don't expect it to last over 3000 years.

Q: In updating the electrical (our house has conduit running everywhere) can the adobe be scored out in runs and then replastered?

A: Yes, that is how it should have been done. The channels for the wiring need to be 2" deep. You can run type UF cable to meet the electrical and adobe codes in New Mexico. Fill the channel with mud almost to the surface then replaster. I find that the use of 3" or 4" gold deck screws are great for anchoring the switch and outlet boxes in the adobe wall. These screws have a large, aggressive thread that really gets a bite and hold the box. I also recommend the use of mostly metal boxes as they have straight sides instead of the slight taper of plastic boxes. The plastic boxes feel to me as if they just want to squirt out of the wall. Besides, each metal box in contact with the adobe wall adds to the grounding of the system which is a major concern in modern electrical codes.

Q: I have a brick fireplace with the top and exhaust pipe made of tin. Can I cover the tin with adobe?

A: You can certainly do that and it has been done for millennia. The International Residential Code does not recognize the fact that adobe is as fireproof a material as can be found so it won't meet Code. To meet Code, you would have to change the tin exhaust pipe for a clay flue tile and then surround it with fire brick or solid pumice bricks. You would probably have to rebuild the entire firebox with fire brick, too. It's a strange world.

Q: Where can I find a variety of floor plans for adobe homes?

A: Laura and Alex Sanchez published a book called Adobe Homes for Today. I can't track it down at the moment. Book costs about $25 and each plan can be built in stages and finished in Pueblo, Territorial or Mountain Gable styles. Plans can be purchased from the Sanchezes on disc in CAD for about $25 each. Plans can be modified by a CAD knowledgeable person. I don't see how they do it at that price. Maybe that's why I cant find it. Most of the houses have adobe perimeter (exterior) walls and frame interior walls. I prefer to build adobe all through the house. Soundproof. Solid. Fireproof. Don't have to learn a new set of materials and tools. My last known email address for Alex is; alexsATunm.edu

Q & A: I am writing to find out if you use insecticides in adobe homes.

I built and renovated adobe homes for 25 years. I never used an insecticide in those homes nor did I place soil poisons under them. Some builders and homeowners do use insecticides and soil poisons but NM has a large number of builders who understand the need for non-toxic homes.

How long do the wooden beams in the ceilings in adobe houses last?

Wooden beams and the round poles, vigas , last hundreds of years as long as the roofing material is maintained.

How much wood is in an adobe house?

Because of the beams and vigas and often wood ceilings and the door and window frames, there is often more board feet of lumber in an adobe home than in a stick built frame home.

How hard is it to build an adobe house?

Brutal

How many people does it take to build an adobe house?

one person 4000 hours. two persons 2000 hours. four persons 1000 hours. Any combination to give 4000 person hours. (Four thousand persons for one hour is awkward but Habitat for Humanity comes close.)

My wife and I only need a house about 24feet by 22feet.

Oh, well then 1328 person hours

We could go 24 by 24.

1450 person hours

I cannot work on mechanical devices very well.

Hire out the plumbing heating and electrical. Those hours are included in the numbers above.

Q: Please advise on hanging animal mounts like elk,etc. weighing 30 to 60 # on adobe.

A: Four or six inch gold deck screws or same size just plain black sheetrock screws driven in at a 15 or 20 degree downward angle will hold darn near anything. We use them to mount stair rails to adobe walls.

Q: We are a small family operated business in Montana. We have been selling tipi poles and fence rails for 20 years. Our business is Whispering Pines Pole Co. We have a source for small round wood. Wanting to find an outlet for latillas, not sure if I am spelling it correctly. Small sticks used in the construction of southwestern building.

A: Latillas are indeed a common decking system over the vigas which are the main structural support of roof/ceilings in many adobe homes. Locally they are marketed as peeled poles of 1-1/2" to 3" diameter. They are often sold in 8' lengths at around $5 for the smaller diameter. Viga spacing is 24 to 36 inches and the latillas may be placed diagonally so it is hard to know in advance precisely the lengths to use with the least waste. Often times the person who harvests and peels the poles sells them from the back of a pickup truck along certain highway intersections around New Mexico. Larger retailers are Adobe Builders Supply in Albuquerque and New Mexico Vigas and Timber in the Espanola area. Old Pueblo Adobe in the Tucson area. They might buy at wholesale prices from a supplier such as yourself. Aspen, cedar/juniper, and pine,fir, spruce are the preferred species.

Q: I'd like to build an adobe wall around my house in place of a wood fence. Where do I begin finding someone to come supervise? Right now, our budget is $900 and we live just outside of Mojave, CA.

A: I will check to see if any of my students can get to Mojave. An adobe wall on a concrete foundation about 4-feet high can cost about $40 per linear foot if you have to buy the adobes.

Q: I'm trying to find an architect or builder who can verify that the interior and exterior walls of Santa Fe and southwest homes are generally irregular and imperfect to create the look of above home styles.

A: I was a licensed general contractor in the State of New Mexico building only adobe homes for 25 years. I am now an academic teaching the only full-time adobe construction program in the USA here at Northern New Mexico College in El Rito. I will be glad to verify that the walls, ceilings and roofs of adobe homes are somewhat irregular and imperfect both inside and out. Builders and tradesmen do their best to make the walls as regular and perfect as they can but there will always be some discrepancies since they are using materials not produced in controlled conditions factories.

I would also be happy to verify that many frame builders, in order to make their homes look as if they were adobe, go well beyond what is necessary in making their work appear to have the perceived irregularities of adobe homes. Builders and tradesmen take great pride in misaligning framing members and keeping things out of plumb while leaving gouges and other faux mistakes and discrepancies in finish surfaces. Thus, the way to tell true adobe construction from imitative adobe construction is that the true adobe is usually far more regular inside and out.

Q: Can adobe be used as a cement to hold stone or other materials together to construct a house? I see where mud has been used to put between logs in cabin building. But is it strong enough to be a bonding material?

A: It was done at Chaco Canyon and in many historical buildings throughout the world. Might not meet code.

Q: I live in eastern Colorado - about 40 miles east of Denver. I would like to build a fence using adobe post/pillars with split rails in between. This would mostly be used to fence off the property (3 acres), but would love it if I could use it to keep a horse in as well. Is my area conducive to this? Can I just use the clay soil from my land? (lord knows it's got to be good for something!) how many bricks would you estimate for each post? What would I use at the base of each post (sand, scrape the sod or cement?) Would straw bale construction be a faster/easier/better idea? Thanks for anything you can tell me! (I'm breaking the unwritten rule of plastic white fencing around here, so it has to look good, but I want it 'green')

A: I think that you live upon one continuous potential adobe. It might not be right at the surface where there may be pesky organic materials that foster growth of plants. Just below the dratted farm or ranch land there should be abundant clay and sand. The best adobes, mortars, plasters and floors of adobe have 30%clay and 70% sand. If there is not a perfect layer, then further down there will be sand and clay layers that can be blended.

Under your pillars you need a good foundation. Large gravel in a trench 4" wider on each side than the pillars will do. The trench needs to get down about a foot and terminate in a flat bottom on undisturbed earth. Gravel foundations do not have to get down to the frost line. They may be outside what your local building officials will allow although over on the wild-eyed Western Slope and around Rifle and Carbondale they are permitted. A concrete foundation well understood by builders and inspectors needs to get down to frost line and should also be wider than the pillar at the bottom of the trench.

Adobe bricks need to be well above the surrounding dirt level to keep them dry most of the time. You could make 8"x 16" bricks and lay them up side by side for a 16 by 16" pillar. Alternate the direction of the adobes each course to tie it together. To go six feet you will need about 32 adobes.

If your horses are frisky and like to probe their containment system, they could lean on the rails hard enough to loosen adobes at the top of the pillars. A clever person should be able to figure out a solution to that. I am out of clever by noon Thursday every week.

Q: Thanks for making me laugh so late Quentin... I needed that. So, it sounds like I can do this pretty well by using a skid digger or backhoe (lord save us!) to scrape down a foot (?) to clay, move that wonderful, pesky top soil to my garden, move the river rocks away from my house and to the scrapped area, and bake some bricks for fence posts! Sounds like fun... country girls don't need no stinkin' gyms anyway! Seriously, thanks for the info, I'll let you know how it turns out at the end of summer. Oh..one other question if I may... is there something other than the adobe brick that is used to cover the whole structure or are the bricks left exposed?

A: Just plain, natural adobes will weather away over the years. That can be viewed as a romantic journey to a wonderful ruin or it can be viewed as a disaster. There are some wonderful corners of adobe buildings on the high plains around the Oklahoma Panhandle. To avoid this many cultures plaster adobes with mud plaster that is viewed as a sacrificial layer that is replenished every year or seven. Other cultures add emulsified asphalt or lime or cement to make the adobes more water resistant. In NM lots of people use cement/lime/sand standard stucco over the wall to get a lifetime of 50 or 60 years. Flat rocks on top of the wall extending beyond its width, clay tile rooflets, the list goes on......

Q: Given the recent forest fires in California, and the use of wood to build homes in forested areas are adobe homes more fire resistant? I am thinking that if they can withstand forest fires then it would be smart to use these homes in areas where they are likely to occur. Building homes that are in sync with the environment and the elements of mother nature makes sense both environmentally and moneywise. Can you tell me if an adobe earth home would be more resistant to forest fires?

A: Adobe itself will not burn unless the entire planet ignites. Still, we have a tough time convincing building officials of that unless we can show an appropriate ASTM Test E 119 or NFPA Test 250 that demonstrate a two- or four-hour rating. It is obvious to most of us working with adobe that it is as fire resistant as anything can be but to do the actual tests requires around $75,000 and there is no adobe industry association with that kind of money so we just have to rely on our good common sense.

An adobe home with low adobe parapets and a good old fashioned earth roof would be very difficult to damage in a fire. However, attention has to be paid to doors and windows so that they remain intact in a conflagration. It would not hurt to design fire resistant shutters for them just an folks in Florida have storm shutters ready to go for hurricanes. A more modern house with a pitched roof would need to consider construction details such as the amount of roof overhang and how it might entrap a fire front moving up against the house and whether or not there should be vents in the soffit which would allow a wildfire to intrude into the roof cavity. Certainly a metal roof with a steep pitch and no gutters would encourage embers raining from above to slide off to the ground.

Here in New Mexico we see fires in adobe homes. The adobe walls are left standing. Wood parts around doors and windows including lintels can burn as well as the ceilings of vigas and latillas or tongue and groove lumber. These are usually fires that start from within. Adobe walls are as fire resistant as dirt. However, a house is a system so all the other components have to be well thought out to get the entire house up to the same or near level of safety.

You are absolutely on the right track. A wood-sided home with cedar shakes or shingles on the roof makes no sense in a dry, fire-prone forest. Here in New Mexico, about 300 homes burned in Los Alamos in a fire during May 2000. It is a town of smart people but I don't think anyone saw the obvious safety of adobe construction as the reconstruction took place. Perhaps one house got rebuilt as adobe.

Q: We have recently purchased an adobe brick home in Fresno CA, built in 1964. Some of the rooms have a distinct smell to them... Smells like adobe, but just seems to be too strong a smell. Is this smell common or is it symptomatic of some other problem? Is there any way to seal adobe without ruining its natural look and feel?

A: I don't associate any smell with adobe homes. When wet, adobe bricks or mortar or plaster give off a damp earth smell which goes away when it dries out. You might have a moisture problem that comes from the ground up or perhaps from the roof down if there is small roof leak. Adobe walls can be sealed with OKON W-1 or 2 which can be found on the web. It is a sealer that maintains breathability and water vapor permeability. You do not want to seal the walls with an impermeable sealer if there is indeed a moisture problem since the moisture needs to get out somewhere. In fact, I would not seal the walls before a little sleuthing around to see if the source of the smell can be located.

Take a good look at your roof system and connections to the wall systems. If moisture is rising from below it could be from the outside ground level having built up above the foundation level which often happens around any type of house as people plant flowers or grass. There may be places where water pools around the foundation or walls and then percolates down into the ground only to come back up in the walls.

We have found that sometimes we can detect moisture locations in walls by taking lots of readings of the wall surface temperatures with a point and shoot infrared thermometer. Evaporating moisture makes areas of higher moisture cooler than surrounding drier areas.

Q: I was interested in building an outdoor patio (with no roof) in the SF Bay Area. For walls, I'm tempted to explore natural walls. It is possible. Is it strong enough (for built in/attached benches made of the same materials?)

A: Adobe certainly makes fine walls and they are or were all over your area. There is the Martinez House extant in the Richmond area. Then there are the CA Missions and lots of unsung adobe structures including John Muir's cabin. Adobe makes fine bancos, too.

Q: I have recently bought a 1927 built adobe home in San Diego and I love it. It is in great shape and I would like to keep it that way. This is my first home by the way and I feel very fortunate to have a REAL adobe house. I would like to know what I should pay attention to in order to keep it in great shape for another 80 years?

A: (Kelly) I would suggest that you pay especial attention to any areas that might show water damage and eliminate the source of this. When adobes are kept out of the weather, they will last pretty much forever.