Foundations for Adobe
Quentin
Wilson and
Associates, specializes in solar adobe design and construction. He grew
up in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico where he watched adobe
bricks being made. In the fifth grade, he made miniature adobes on cookie
sheets in his mother’s oven in order to construct house models for
a class assignment. By age thirteen he made full-sized adobes in the back
yard and ruined the grass. Later, he traveled a bit, went through the
Army, and graduated eventually from the University of New Mexico with
a major in physics, minors in math, chemistry, and education in 1970.
After teaching high school two years and community college math for three
more, Quentin moved into professional solar adobe construction in 1976
as the Project Manager and Instructor for the Sundwellings Demonstration
Project at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM. He became a licensed general contractor
in the State of New Mexico in 1982. He has been building homes and teaching
seminars and workshops ever since. In the fall of 1995 he established
and taught the full-time Adobe Construction Program at Northern New Mexico
Community College. His website, quentinwilson.com, lists the course schedule and many other resources related to working with adobe.
Q: How do you build foundations for an adobe house (2 floors) on the sand? The location would be on a stable sand dune. I don't know yet if there's any layer of rock at a decent distance from the surface. But, in the case the layer is very deep, what can we do?
A: Sand is not such a bad base for a house. The foundation needs to get down to the frost level if there is one at your location. The foundation needs to be a minimum of 8-inches thick and should be at six-inches wider than the wall on each side. For two story construction the first floor needs to be at least 14-inches thick and the second should step back to 10-inches. Adobe walls should not go higher than ten times their thickness so if the wall does not step back for the second floor then it needs to be twenty-inches thick all the way up. My best recommendation is to stick to a single story if you have not built adobe before and given that you are on a sand base.
Q: If one followed the 10 to 1 width/height ratio, could we build a relatively self standing adobe wall (used like a fence) at the heights mentioned? We had learned that if building a cement block wall of over 4 feet tall, one has to reinforce with mortar & rebar. We would also love our 'wall' to have some curves. Thanks for any hints on reading material and whether homemade sun baked adobe bricks would support this wall project.
A: It will work just fine. Just stay a bit below the height limitation of a 10" or 12" wall. A good foundation to the frost line or else a Frank Lloyd Wright gravel trench with or without the concrete grade beam will work. Curves in the wall make it stronger. We do have an adobe discussion group at adobe-subscribeATyahoogroups.com I normally don't recruit for that group but you might benefit from it more than most.
Q: Could it be useful to use tires for the foundation of an adobe house?
A: Tires rammed tightly with soil make a reasonably acceptable foundation. I don't think that it saves time or energy. My preference would be large flat stones dry stacked or round stones laid up in the minimum amount of cement/lime mortar.
Q: I am designing an adobe house. Since abode walls have to be protected from rain I was thinking of elevating my house and using rocks up to the plinth height. Will it be structurally safe as the house elevation will be partially in a artificial pond? If yes/no what kind of foundation should I go in for?
A: This sounds like a really interesting project! Actually a stone foundation might be one of the best choices if your house is to be situated in standing water. The reason for this is that because of the spaces between stones, there is little chance that they will transmit moisture upward due to capillary action. If you use a cement/lime/sand mortar between the stones, that might change since that mix might support capillarity. There are plenty of successful buildings around the world sitting on stone foundations.
Q: I am wondering though about the capillary action of the concrete foundation. Our house site is in a Very dry area with the water table down around 200 feet or so, so I'm not worried about that. My question: Is the capillary action of concrete such that, during mild to heavy New Mexico snow melt or summer monsoons, enough moisture could wick up into the foundation from the ground to threaten the integrity of the structure, given that the first course of the house is all of unstabilized adobes?
A: It is useful to paint emulsified asphalt on top of the foundation or trowel on one of the roofing asphalt coatings. Since your adobes are already in place, you might coat the exterior surface of the foundation with asphalt or Bituthene or similar sheet material. In the long run, I don't think you have much to worry about. The traditional response to the snow problem was to sweep or shovel it away from the building.You will do fine. Worst case is that the house might only last 200 years instead of 2000.
Q: Firstly, my plan is to build a small (10' diameter dome) using earth, with an earthbag stem wall filled with pumice (on site). Thoughts?
A: Over the years, I have worked with pumice in a variety of forms. In ground contact it becomes damp and looses its insulating abilities. In walls, it has higher moisture content than the ambient atmosphere and surrounding materials. Pumice is well designed to be a fine capillary action medium and any moisture in pumice becomes well disbursed and uniformly damp or dry very quickly. Therefore you will want to introduce a good moisture and vapor barrier between the bag wall and the adobe.
I am no fan of the use of bag walls at the lower part of the building. Filled with pumice and no binder such as clay or cement, the system depends entirely on the polypropylene material. As evidenced by the short lifetime of blue poly tarps found at most construction sites, the material has little resistance to ultraviolet degradation. Therefore, you will want to have a very good plaster or some other form of covering over the stem wall to protect the bag material. You will want to be careful to maintain that coating for the life of the building. ironically, the old burlap material which has now been replaced by poly for sand bags lasted far longer out in the open.
Q: I plan to use a compacted gravel trench foundation, with a 14" wide and 8" thick bond beam sitting on top of that to support the exterior walls, post and beam, with straw clay infill. I wonder what type of foundation is required for the interior adobe walls.
A: To begin with a 14 or 18-inch x 8-inch gravel trench. The NM Earthen Buildings Code specifies that the adobe coursing should start at 4 inches above the floor level. That means a grade beam on top of the gravel, or cmu's of the knock-out or "U" shape to carry rebar and concrete. Alternatively, the first two courses of adobe bricks should be fully stabilized.
The finished adobe floor will come to the top of the exterior wall's bond beam.
(Which I call a grade beam.) This might not be permitted by the Earthen Bld Code, as above.
If I use gravel trench for interior walls, how deep, and will I need an equally large bond beam? Is a bond beam necessary to tie the buildings foundation together?
The gravel filled trench does a fine job of spreading the building load and tying the building together at the bottom as long as the local soil is stable and not moving. The Code does not necessarily recognize this fact.
Q: I am designing a small house to be built in Torrance County NM. It will be passive solar design, post and beam, with light straw clay infill for exterior walls, adobe floor. At least two major walls on the interior are to be 10" thick adobe brick wall. These are in the south rooms of the building and will serve as solar mass. These are non bearing walls. One runs parallel to the roof trusses above. This connects with the south exterior wall. The other will be midway beneath the trusses, and will run perpendicular to them. Loading, however, will be on adequate post and beam structure for that wall. I plan to use a compacted gravel trench foundation, with a 14" wide and 8" thick bond beam sitting on top of that to support the exterior walls, post and beam, with straw clay infill. I wonder what type of foundation is required for the interior adobe walls. The finished adobe floor will come to the top of the exterior wall's bond beam. If I use gravel trench for interior walls, how deep, and will I need an equally large bond beam? Is a bond beam necessary to tie the buildings foundation together?
A: For your interior walls a gravel trench that is four inches wider on each side will be fine. There should be 8-inches of gravel and as long as you are on undisturbed earth, there is no need to go down to the frost line. Myself and PG McHenry never did the concrete grade beam as we call it but just started with the adobe coursework right on top of the gravel. It would be advisable to have the adobe walls start about four inches above the mud floor for protection from the possibility of a burst pipe somewhere in the future or the possibility of moisture wicking up from the floor. Solid ground ties the building together well enough at the bottom so the concrete is optional or something to get adobe above exterior grade and interior floor levels.
Q: Is it possible to establish a lawn around an adobe house? I'm considering using native, drought resistant grass (blue grama) but have been told that a lawn and an adobe house are not compatible.
A: The traditional adobe house enjoyed flowers and other plants at some distance from the house and kept the soil around the house free of plants, well packed and sloped to drain water away from the house. If your house has a modern foundation that is waterproof and has a membrane or tar on top of the cement to stop upward migration of water into the adobe, then a lawn will be fine. I have a small lawn that abuts one adobe wall and has shown that my foundation is not 100% waterproof.
Q: I used to live in Logan in Northern Utah and the land moved a lot causing many broken foundations. One old house across the street had a fine foundation. When I asked the elderly Lady who lived there about it she told me that it had had some work done now and then. She also said that the thing she found most interesting was the last contractor had told her that the interior part of the foundation was adobe brick. She didn't know what it was covered with. The house itself was built around WW1 and was a stick built house. Was the contractor just confused? If not how would this be done?
A: That's a great story and I hope its true. Adobe bricks can tolerate some movement without a house being totally damaged but we would rather is did not have to move. If the adobes were used below grade there might have been stucco or parging as it is called on a foundation. Logan is a fairly dry climate and if there is not much water in the surrounding soil then adobe bricks would hold up over the years. Modern codes don't allow us to place adobes below grade and that is a reasonable rule. Sometimes we find old houses that broke the rule before it was written and the houses have survived just fine.
Q: We are planning to build an adobe home on our farm in Montrose, CO. The soils on our farm are "expansive clay", meaning that there is not a single concrete pad in the county which has not buckled (unless it was poured in the last decade using post-tension concrete, which we will use for out pad).
A: Montrose! Friends don't let friends live in Montrose. Delta, Gunnison, Rifle maybe. Paonia has citizens building grade beams on gravel trenches. If Montrose has such expansive soils that post- or pre-tensioned concrete is needed, then the brutal weight of adobe walls might even do in those high tech solutions. Over-excavation with tamped engineered fill might be a solution. Look around for a contractor over 65 years old to see what he did in the good old days.
Q: Is it possible to build a basement in east Tenn. mountain area out of adobe stabilized bricks or is it better to just use a concrete basement with the adobe brick structure above.
A: It has been done in two houses that I know of that did not have to deal with the NM Earthbuilding Code. They are still standing but I think it is a risk. The NM Earthbuilding specifies that adobe stabilized or not should be at least six inches above the surrounding grade level. Adobe walls should be a minimum of ten inches thick. The foundation stem wall or a basement wall need to be the same thickness to support the adobe wall. Therefore, I only built one house in 25 years of adobe construction that had a basement.
Q: We are in Colorado and use the new Mexico adobe building code. If I am making a two story addition, how thick does the brick need to be on the bottom? Do we need to get a engineered foundation?
A: The NM code specifies that the minimum for two-story construction is 14-in thick walls for the first floor and 10-in thick walls for the second floor. Should you want both walls to be the same thickness, then 20-inch walls are required. As long as the footing gets down to the frost line, is 8-inches deep and 4-inches wider than the stem wall on each side (That's the Q-rule and PG McHenry Rule since the Code only requires 2-inches each side), has two 1/2-in rebar with a stem wall the same width as the adobe wall it supports that gets 8-inches above grade and 4-inches above floor level then no engineer stamp is needed in NM.
Q: My Husband and I are in the process of planning and building a cob brick home with a budget of under $150.00 NZ to prove that it is possible with recycled resources. We would like to construct the foundations using used tyres and glass bottles because we feel this would be sustainable in a high seismic risk area here in the South Island of New Zealand. Replacing these recycled resources with the expensive (both planetary and financially) concrete. We are, however encountering some resistance from authorities etc that this would be sustainable and feasible. Are there any examples of how and where this technique has been used?.
A: I would avoid brick bottles under the house where the greatest weight is experienced. They might be useful higher up and are being collected by one of our instructors for a building on his property. Tyres should make a fine foundation if they are filled with sand, gravel, or well compressed soil. You have my sympathies in dealing with building officials. I have no advice on dealing with them in NM.
Q: I'm thinking about building a largish cabin in western MD. Rather than gathering rocks from the local surrounding I was thinking of making sun dried adobe bricks and using them instead of stone on top of a gravel trench for the foundation. I was just wondering if you knew a good way to incorporate the sun dried adobe brick, into a foundation for a wood cabin. Additionally I was thinking of making the molds for the brick with a hollow in the middle for rebar, is that necessary?
A: With sun-cured adobes we work hard to keep them away from moisture. This is especially the case of moisture from the soil. Adobe structures are almost always built on a stone or concrete foundation that keeps the adobe bricks 6- or 8-inches above the surrounding grade. The New Mexico Earthen Building Materials Code does not allow us to use adobes below grade. A few structures have been built with below grade adobes but it is always a surprise if they have survived and no surprise if they have crumbled.
Should you proceed with adobe bricks in the foundation you could certainly create holes in the adobes for rebar. However, I don't see what they would bond to if the footing is a rubble trench and above the adobes there would presumable be a wood mud sill to begin the construction of the cabin. Rare as it might be, I would probably discourage you from using sun-cured adobes in this situation.
Somewhere around 1774 the Hilltop House was built in Washington, DC. It was rammed earth and probably at least three stories high. It is thought to have served as Monroe's interim White House after the British burned the original It sat at 1300 Rhode Island Avenue NE and lasted until about 1953 when it was razed to make way for subsidized housing. To save wood, you might consider a rammed earth or adobe cabin. It will need a good foundation.
Q: My husband and I are building a house with poured adobe floors and we can't seem to find any information on how the interior walls are done. On a traditional cement pad the walls are put on the cement but is adobe too soft for that? Are they built on top of cement footings, then the floor poured?
A: Walls should be on concrete footings, exterior and interior. The adobe floors can then be poured inside the footings. For adobe walls, the footings should extend 4-inches above the floor or else the first two courses should be fully stabilized adobe bricks. If the walls are some other type of construction the rules might be different.
Q: I am currently doing a bathroom remodel and just finished pulling the subfloor, when I discovered there is no foundation in this part of the house. Because it is the bathroom I would like to dig a crawl space, and have a concrete foundation for moisture protection. Is there any precedent for adding a foundation to an existing adobe wall, perhaps via spaced concrete piers and then pouring footers in between? Currently the wall has no cracks, is 18" thick and is in good condition considering its age.
A: Yipes! My own bathroom has little to recognize as a foundation. My shower was just mud plastered walls and it had a nice earth smell after a shower. That seemed too eccentric for some of the family so the shower walls became 1 x 6 aspen tongue and groove. We lost the earthy smell and there are those who still think I am eccentric.
So if you want to proceed, you can excavate half way under the walls from the inside and pour a half foundation with short lengths of rebar pounded into the dirt on the other side at 16" on center vertically and horizontally. Install a couple of continuous rebar runs horizontally, form and pour the concrete and let it set up. Then go to the other side of the bathroom walls and excavate out that side under the walls and form up the other half with several continuous bands of horizontal rebar. The protruding stubs from the first half will tie the two halves
together and then you get a crawl space. Jack Edwards did this on his house by the plaza in El Rito, NM.
If it is too difficult to get access to both sides of the wall, then you can excavate all the way under the adobe wall for about three feet. Skip six feet and excavate another three. Do this until you are back at the starting point. Now pound rebar as far into the six foot columns as is practical, form up and pour the concrete. Then, strip the forms and shift to the next three foot intervals. By the third round of dig, rebar, form, pour you will have a complete footing. We did this on a house at Chromo, NM just by the Colorado border.
That's a lot of work for a crawl space.
Q: I have a double adobe house that was not built on a foundation in Lamy, NM. There have been 2 "hundred year" floods since I have lived here and also copper pipes were used and they all are being replaced because of all the leaks and now black mold. The house is sinking somewhat also. Should it have been built on a foundation?
A: All houses throughout the world and across the eons need a good foundation and a good roof. My own home has a section built in the 1940's before postwar money began to flow where I think they did little more than sweep off loose dirt before they began laying adobes. I am lucky in that the house has remained stable and I have been able to add an attic over that area. I guess the soil here served as a good foundation but I am about sixty feet above the level of the Vallecitos River.
Your house may be a step up with a trench filled with stone or gravel under the adobes. That is not recognized by the 2009 New Mexico Earthen Building Code as a proper foundation unless it had an architect's or engineer's stamp. Houses like this with no permits or stamps have lasted hundreds of years in NM. It is hard to determine what should have been done under adobe walls at particular locations and built at particular points in history. Adobe codes began with Albuquerque a few years before or after 1960. The State of New Mexico adopted and adapted that code around 1967. The Law of the Indies followed most of the time by the Spanish settlers of New Mexico warned against building too close to a river and insisted that all homes should be above the acequias. Floods and leaking pipes is a double punch that's not fair. I am sorry you have to face it.
Q: Do rubble trench foundations work with adobe buildings?
A: Rubble trenches are fine but are not the hill to die on in many jurisdictions. Besides, there have been torrential, Biblical rains in many places. So, a footing with stem wall that gets well above the finish grade level (on a well sloped site) might not be that much more trouble than rubble with a grade beam on top. My own home has some rubble with adobes right on top - no grade beam. That was P. G. McHenry's style. Frank Lloyd Wright came up with the grade beam idea and look where that got him.
Q: I have a 90 year old adobe in Albuquerque..that I'm adding an addition to. Should I have any issue using sandstone as a stone foundation with bagged mortar mix (for the look of it more than anything). The addition wall would be 7 ft long and 9 feet high. with adobe brick being the wall materials.
A: Sandstone and bagged mortar will make a fine foundation. It worked for buildings built in the era of your original building. It should be 6-inches above the exterior grade and 4-inches above the finish floor level. Most likely it will not be approved by building officials but perhaps you are not planning to go that route. NM has the Existing Earthen Building Materials Code but now requires that the building be certified as a historic building. In fact, I think the code is now called the Historic Earthen Building Materials Code. It can be found on the NM Construction Industries Division website. It sometimes takes a bit of a search to find. You could print it out and wave it in front of building officials who most likely have not read it and that might make them happy.
Q: I am planning to build my house with CSEB. Can I make a Stabilized Rammed Earth structure my the foundation for the building? If so, how better it could be than a Rubble Trench foundation?
A: My viewpoint is that a Rubble Trench is the better option. Most codes will not allow anything other than concrete or stone or cement based materials for foundations. Rubble Trenches, where allowed either by code or by architect/engineer stamp do not actually have to go down to the frost line. Since they have lots of interstitial space they mostly drain water downward and away and what moisture remains can expand by freezing into the spaces rather than frost heaving the buildings. Should you be in an area where the ground never freezes this point is of no concern. Still codes and Quentin do not want you to do any construction with earthen building materials below the finished grade.
I don't see the point of putting CSEB walls on SRE foundations. One could just as easily put a SRE wall on a CSEB foundation. It would make sense to me to just do CSEB or SRE from whatever the starting point to the top of the wall. If you plan to make your career building earthen houses it does not hurt to learn several techniques but for the once-in-a-lifetime builder, you have two systems to learn not to mention the acquisition of equipment for two very different systems.
Q: I have a 40 year old adobe home with a few issues. Mainly, the slab wasn't a raised form, it seems the builder dug out the shape of the floor into the grade, before pouring the slab. on the exterior side the adobe begins at grade. The problem now 40 years later is, the road and property around the house is 4 to 8 inches higher than the lowest parts of the adobe wall. In monsoon, there is always standing water. I am toying with the idea of putting a vapor barrier against the exterior side about two feet high and adding a 4 inch thick masonry wall of some kind against the adobe. This would begin below frost line and rise up to two feet above grade. This would be finished tapering back to the original wall and then all re-plastered. At this point raise the grade higher than the road and low areas of the property and steeply slopping away from the house. I have not seen any other way to address this problem.
A: Somehow, moisture always gets into adobe walls from somewhere. It needs to get out and the route is often moisture vapor moving out of the wall through the interior or exterior surfaces. With the system you propose, the vapor barrier may very well keep moisture out but that one little bit that gets in has its exit obstructed. If your interior surfaces are mud plaster, gypsum plaster, no plaster, they have high moisture vapor permeability and then moisture can get out in that direction. However glossy paints or many coats of paint can really cut the permeability. If that happens, then moisture moves up the adobe wall and you may find a moisture level evidenced by efflorescence crystals or just a damp mark just above your vapor barrier and cement based wall.
I don't know why soil levels keep building up around a house, but they do and that includes my own home. Another solution would be to remove the dirt back down to or a bit below the finish floor line so the adobe is a bit above the grade. If the road is far enough away you can put in a reverse berm called a swale where the soil is graded downward at at least 1/2" per foot for eight feet away from the house. Better yet, 1" per foot. The low spot becomes a ditch and hopefully it can be routed around the house in a continuously sloping manner to the steep slope you mention to provide a runoff route for that monsoon water.
You might think that moving the finish grade down would move the frost line down. Unless you live in Angel Fire or International Falls, MN, there really is no frost line below a slab on grade home. The temperature isoclines from six feet down where the year round temperature stabilizes come right up to the slab including its edges. For most of New Mexico that grave digger's temperature is 57 degrees to 60 degrees and that temperature comes right up to the bottom of the slab.
Q: This is a follow up to a question about building a 4-6 foot tall adobe courtyard wall in Albuquerque using semi-stabilized adobe bricks. I am hoping to avoid using any concrete in this project. If I use a rubble trench foundation, and lay the first course with fully stabilized adobe bricks, would this be a reasonable alternative to a concrete grade beam. If so, should I paint the top of the bricks with asphalt?
Do the first two courses with fully stabilized bricks. There is no need to paint the tops of the bricks with asphalt in my opinion. If the rubble trench is 3/4-inch gravel it will not support capillary action so you can just lay the fully stabilized bricks right on top of it. Bedding the first course in fully stabilized mortar spreads the load onto the gravel and is the thing to do. Same mortar between the first two courses. Finish up the semi-stabilized bricks with a semi-stabilized mortar. It should all last many years.
Q: I am building a 4-6 foot adobe courtyard wall in Albuquerque and I am getting some estimates from contractors to build either a rubble trench or concrete foundation, and some of their proposals have left me confused, in particular regarding the depth of the foundation, the substrate to be used and the need for drainage. From reading about rubble trench foundation, my impression is that it needs to be 2" deeper than the frost line, which in Albuquerque is officially16". One contractor said it would be fine if the foundation is only 12". Can one get by with a foundation above the frost line for a 4-6 foot wall, or am I missing something? Also from my research, the substrate for the fill should be crushed stone, but the proposals I have received include either a mix of stone and sand or a layer of compacted base on top of the stone. I am wondering if 100% crushed stone is optimal, or are there are other good alternatives? Finally, my site has very little grade to it. I have been assuming I would need to slope the bottom of my trench and dig a dry well for the trench to empty into. One of the contractors I spoke with said he never does that and has never had a problem. Is that reasonable or is my plan for a dry well a necessary precaution.
A: My thoughts are that crushed stone or 3/4" round gravel are optimal. The aggregate should be one size and not a gradation. This allows lots of space around the stone for water to move and if there is any water in the trench it gives space for expansion in the case of freezing. Compacted base, especially in the old formulation which included clay, will hinder the movement of water through the matrix. Gravel of one gradation does not support capillary action. This stops any upward migration of water due to capillarity when there are a lot of fines in case the ground is damp due to high water table or flooding. I would think that in all soils known in the Albuquerque area there is sufficient percolation for any water in the trench from rain to disappear downwards in a short amount of time. I just don't see the need for a dry well and sloped trench. A twelve-inch depth is fine as long as the bottom of the trench is undisturbed earth. If the trench is over-dug it should be filled with gravel and not dirt. It is not necessary to get down to the frost line since there is nothing to freeze if the percolation does its job.
I am planning a rubble trench foundation, but part of the foundation will need to be concrete because the sides of the trench are in an area where they would not be bordered by stable soil. I have spoke to a few contractors who said I would be crazy not to include a concrete stem before the first course of adobe. Do I need that or can I just end the foundation at ground level and make the first 2 courses of adobe fully stabilized (like I am going to do with the rubble trench)? If that is OK, should I paint the concrete with asphalt? If I need a stem, how high does it need to be?
It's always good to get six inches above the surrounding ground level with a stem wall. Yes, it should be painted - twice - with emulsified asphalt to stop upward migration of moisture into the adobe. On the gravel filled rubble trench there is no capillary action through the gravel so no asphalt is needed. If you are going with fully stabilized adobe bricks for the first two courses on the rubble then that will work on the concrete also. However there might be frost heaving under the concrete so you might consider getting it down to the frost line and then the stem wall would be useful to get up to grade and six inches beyond.
Would it be unwise if rubble trench foundation and the concrete part abut each other so that the second course on the rubble trench ties right into he first course on top of the concrete section's stem wall. Could the two sections settles differently over the time causing the wall to crack? I could always separate the two sections with a doorway, but that would not be optimal. For the concrete foundation, do I need to do anything to attach the adobes to the stem wall, i.e. rebar coming up from the stem wall into the joint of the first course of adobes, or is gravity adequate?
The wall should stand well over time where it crosses the rubble trench and concrete footing and stem. Tamp the bottoms of both sections very well and tamp the gravel once it is in place. Your idea to bring the second course on the rubble into the first on the stem wall should work well. There is no need to use rebar to attach adobes to the stem wall. That is sometimes a solution in high risk seismic areas but not in Albuquerque. You might consider a ten-foot piece of Durowall placed horizontally in the mortar joint of the first three courses bridging the rubble to concrete intersection. This is the ladder shaped reinforcing used in the concrete block wall construction process.
Part of the wall will parallel my property line, with the wall about a foot in from the line. My neighbor has a large mulberry tree with its trunk about 15 feet from my property. In digging the trench there were many roots up to about 1/4 inch in diameter. This section of the wall will have a concrete foundation. If the foundation is 16 inches wide and deep, will it be safe at this distance from the tree? Is there anything I need to do/can do to prevent root damage in the future?
I don't think there is much concern for a tree that is fifteen feet away. I don't know enough about mulberry trees to be sure that they don't have extra powers of root invasion. I have Russian olives and an elm tree within two to three feet from my garden wall. After 30 years there is no upheaval of the wall.
(Kelly) I have a mature mulberry tree in my yard and excavated a root cellar about 15 feet from it and have a stone patio right next to it and there have been no problems with upheaval from tree roots.
Q: My adobe home was constructed between 1600 to 1800. Additions were added.about 20 years ago. The walls are at minimum 12 inches and made using the old shovel method. The original portion of the house was constructed on the existing sheet of rock as the foundation. The 20 year-old addition was placed on dirt...no foundation. I see large gaps between the foundation and cement poured form. The back porch floor buckled but the living room has not. I think I need to add more dirt under the addition in hopes of preventing the floor from buckling. We can't pour a new foundation under the additions, thus I am wondering what options we can use to save the additions. The house is on a land grant and it is common for additions to be added as they were when built. The house has vigas throughout and the old small portion of the house is well constructed. Would you please provide your recommendations that are cost effective. This is a 300 year plus old house which could easily meet the criteria of a historical house.
A: There is nothing better than stone for a foundation. That concept goes back to Biblical times. My own home has some walls where it looks as if the dirt was swept clean and the adobes started from there. The house is holding up fine.
If you want to prevent your home from sliding down the till, you might pour a "psuedo-foundation" around the perimeter of the walls. This could be of concrete eight-inches in depth and ten-inches in width. That's a minimum. It might go down to the frost line which could be anywhere between twelve-inches and twenty-four inches depending on your location. It should not go more than six-inches above the bottom of the adobe walls since concrete will hold moisture in the walls. But with only six inches to go, moisture will find its way up and out of the wall.
You could go to Herculean efforts and pour a foundation under the adobe. That requires going about three feet at a time excavating under the adobe, filling with concrete and skipping six feet to the next three-foot excavation. Do this around the house three times and you have a complete foundation under the wall. Short pieces of rebar in each excavation pounded partially into the unexcavated portions will supply reinforcement. A more common method is to excavate around the house and remove half the adobe and fill with concrete. Then go inside and excavate the inside half of the adobe and concrete
The psuedo-foundation would be the easier route. There might be simpler cures, also.
Q: I have just put an offer on a half acre lot in New Mexico where I want to build my own adobe house. Before I close the sale, is there anything I should look into on the site itself to make sure that it will be feasible both for me to make my own bricks and to build my house? For example, is it necessary to have the ground tested for strength to hold up the foundation?
A; I spent twenty-five years building adobe homes and never once had the soil tested for its bearing capacity. I did, however, build a wider foundation footing than the minimum required by code. A ten-inch adobe wall is required to be on a fourteen-inch footing. I went with an eighteen-inch minimum width and sometimes twenty-four inches if that happened to be the bucket width on the backhoe.
Q: I have a foundation question for compressed earth brick. I live in Marble Falls, Texas and the lot is located in a flood plain. I am intending to build up on piers and elevate the house a full story so that the ground floor will be an outdoor covered patio. The house will be about 2000 sq. feet. Will this be problematic due to the weight? What advice do you have in this scenario? Do you think it will be cost prohibitive?
A: I think something like this was done outside Austin with CEB's on a massive scale. All you need is a ferociously strong beam to span the piers. Concrete and steel. Might talk to an engineer. There is also a way to make the wall itself act as a beam by having the bottom beam (stem wall) and top beam (bond beam) act in concert with the CEB's.
There is more to it than that. If you are going to need a permit in Marble Falls, prepare for a lot of paperwork. Somebody at earthen construction initiative, www.earthenci.org, should be able to put you in contact with a video of the Austin project and architects and engineers involved.
Since everything in Texas is outsized, the costs of building a CEB structure on piers will also be outsized. Each CEB weighs about 35 pounds. There will be a lot of heavy lifting just to get the bricks up to the wall. Scaffolds will be needed and lots of strong backs. Whereas adobe and CEB can be built close to the cost of wood frame when all is kept simple, up on piers is not simple..
