The Four Elements House Team has been on a mission to Norfolk.
The mission was to find out if and how rammed earth can be applied to the house. We (as a collective) already new quite a bit about rammed earth and it was to be an interesting weekend, because although we had theoretical knowledge, none of us ever did anything practical with rammed earth.., now we have.

Michael Thompson and his girlfriend Bridget created a great course. Very well organized with delicious vegetarian lunches (the best food we had in England actually).
Michael barely finished the build on the shed while starting with the course. He can talk passionate about his shed and all the labour that went into it. The course is mainly focused around his experiences during the build, the research he did for the build and the lessons learned.

Sid

So, what did we learn, well, we have to get our own Sid.
Sid is an invention of Michael. Sid is the Great Sifter, I’m sure other (in the history of the world) have crafted similar devices, but Michael did build this one and it works beautifully. Our student friends are already thinking up ways to improve it, if possible.  
Michael’s design sifts the soil in three parts. Rough stuff (+25 mm), medium stuff (+12 mm) and the rest, which is to be used for the mix. Good show, saves a tremendous amount of time.

Soil

We also have a challenge with our soil (in Chenogne). We believe it to be rich in clay. We’ll have to bring in quite a lot of sand in order to get a good mixture, and a good mixture is the basis for everything. And although Michael uses cement (only 5-8%) in the mixture, we’ll try and not use that. The cement is used for that extra bit of strength in the walls, we hope to come up with an alternative.

Shuttering

Michael uses “regular” formers, create a segment and move the former. He also created a much lighter version than the ones he found on the internet. Made out of plywood, so it can be handled by one person.
We might use a shuttering system, where one builds up a wall to full hight in one “former”. This is used quite often by larger projects, the Australians favor this method. 

Ramming

During the build of the shed Michael went manual for the ramming, he did pretty much all the ramming, about 60m2 of walls, which took him about 180 hours (double that time for mixing soil and handling the formers).
My student friends, who are always thinking, are considering mechanical ramming. Although we might have the help of volunteers, more hands is less work, then again, we’ll have more wall to build, and thicker.

Conclusion

Rammed Earth is a very viable method of building, and you can build, well, nearly anything. History shows it’s not only (relatively) easy to work with, but when properly build, it will last a lot longer than the occupants of the dwelling. And it is “green”.

For us, as a team, it was also a good investment as we got to know each other even better and we all got a sense of what it was that we are planning. Plans are already set in motion by our TU Delft friends to build a showcase shed near the university. We are very interested in that project, it will give our friends even more experience which can be utilized while building the Four Elements Shed in August.

So, thanks Michael and Bridget for a great weekend.

For more information on the Rammed Earth Course, please visit Michael’s website. Or contact us. You might also want to read a small interview with Michael on the “Rammed Earth is for Everyone” blog.