Codes

Articles in This Category

National Straw Bale Building Code is a Go: “Thankfully, we’ve never had to worry ourselves about local building codes, but there are many, many more folks who regularly […]
Max, Nebraska: No Local Government: We often suggest moving to rural areas with few or no building codes to cut housing costs and red tape. […]
Turtle Island Preserve VICTORY: “Friends, it has been just over a year since Watauga County’s attack on Turtle Island Preserve. With your help, and […]
Eco Hobbit Home Photos and Drawings: More pics and drawings of the eco hobbit home in Pembrokeshire. This is a magnificent home and I want to […]
Code Enforcement Abuse/Tyranny: More horror stories of bad experiences with building code officials.
Breaking Down the Barriers: Challenges and Solutions to Code Approval of Green Building: Building code issues are one of the most sought after topics on our blog. David Eisenberg and others at DCAT […]
Peter Cowman – The Shelter Maker: “The structures that Cowman helps build are an extension of the humans who he helps to build them. As he […]
Early US Building Codes: The discussion about Obomba’s new housing program gave me an idea. I was making the point how government programs are […]
Proposed Code Changes in Mendocino County, California: Great News in Mendocino County California!! Dan Antonioli New Event: Zoning & Building Code Changes Supporting Sustainable Development Saturday 19 […]
New Boondoggle Government Housing Program: From CNS News: This week, the Obama administration released a “bold new vision for addressing the nation’s health and economic […]
Sterling Codifiers — Online Building Codes: Many counties and municipalities publish their building codes on their websites. This is adequate if you only need the codes […]
New FAQ’s at Earthbagbuilding.com: The Frequently Asked Questions section of www.earthbagbuilding.com has been accumulating pertinent questions and answers for over a decade. These had […]
Three Ways Building Codes Escalate Construction Costs: Do you think building codes are fair and set up primarily for society’s protection? Guess again. In reality, building codes […]
How the Law Caught Up With a Marin County Visionary: View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com. “David Hoffman is not your typical outlaw. For one, every conversation veers toward the inevitable […]
Earthen Building Techniques used for DIY Eco-dwellings in Portland: “Probably a lot of Portlanders, myself included, are wondering if they will ever be able to buy a house in […]
Permitted Earthbag Dome Home in Florida: Breaking news: an engineer in Florida has just gained approval for the first permitted earthbag dome in Florida. They charged […]
April Magill Interview: Architect Willing to Stamp Natural Building Plans: April Magill, a licensed architect in South Carolina, is willing to stamp construction plans for natural buildings as well as […]
Restricted Building Works in New Zealand: This could be the end for owner builders in NZ. “How these changes affect you. New legislation came into effect […]
Winning Over Your Significant Other: Sara: John, you know I’ve been reading about earthbag building and natural building lately. Well, I’d like to build our […]
Building Codes are a Slippery Slope: I would argue that current building codes make it nearly impossible to build affordable housing. All the restrictions on room […]
Allowable Size to Meet Building Codes: From time to time we answer reader’s questions. Building codes, and where to live where there are Few or No […]
Why I’m Going to Build an Earthbag House: One of our readers sent this. “That’s the beauty of my future home site, it’s in county jurisdiction and well […]
The Sheer Lunacy of the Housing Situation: Nick, one of our readers left the following comments. “I think the sheer lunacy of the housing situation, what you […]
Trailer Houses versus Earthbag Building: I’ve been writing about the problems with building codes for a while now. Just for the record, I’m not 100% […]
American Housing Ripoff: From Haim, a reader in Hungary: “What gets me about the [building] permits in America is they are basically useless. […]
Bill Powers on Off the Grid Homes and Communities: DAVID: Your adventure in “Twelve by Twelve” is part of a long tradition of restless Americans. In early America, Francis […]
Earthbag Building Blog 4th Year Anniversary: This week is the 4th anniversary of Earthbag Building Blog. The growth in readership and content has been amazing. Web […]
New FEMA Flood Plain Insurance Regulations: New FEMA flood insurance regulations are going to have a huge impact on homeowners who live along US waterways. Robert […]
Engineer-approved TJI/Earthbag System: I’ve been reading about the building boom going on in Wyoming and the Dakotas from all the oil and gas […]
Earthbag Platform for Yurts: I posted an idea for Insulated Earthbag Foundations for Yurts at Instructables.com. One reader who left a comment liked the […]
Shear Strength Wall Test Report: Test description: Shear strength of plastered 4′ x 4′/ 1.2 x 1.2 m bag wall (15″ / 38 cm thick) […]
All the Best Earthbag Content: For several years, Kelly and I have been filtering all the best earthbag content from the Web, writing extensively on […]
The Housing Revolution Manifesto: “The quick summary: - Housing in the developing world is often dangerous (especially in earthquakes), climatically inappropriate, toxic, wasteful of […]
Vote with Your Wallet: Zafra, one of our readers, left a comment today that said, “I would argue that government itself is not the […]
Autonomous Buildings: Houses With No Bills: “An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power […]
A ‘Moon Shot’ for Building Energy Efficiency: Kelly sent me the following article about government and big industry plans for achieving energy efficiency in buildings. One goal […]
Top 10 Most Popular Earthbag Blog Posts: Every year we publish the most popular blog posts for the last 12 months. We’ll do that again in November […]
Escape the Ratrace and Live a Carefree Simple Life: The ongoing economic recession is putting lots of people in difficult situations. For some, the situation may even seem hopeless. […]
Disaster Resistant Catenary Domes: Specifications: 314 sq. ft. interior, 181 sq. ft. interior loft, total = 495 sq. ft. interior, Footprint: 23’ diameter This […]
Summary of Earthbag Facts: Let’s take a brief respite from castle plans, shall we? Our website traffic has hit another major spike and so […]
Battle for the California Desert: I found this shocking video at TinyHouses.com. As shown in the video, the government is now making SWAT type raids […]
How to Build the Strongest Buildings That Can Last Centuries: Dustin: I live in Florida where few domestic buildings last more than 50 years because of hurricanes. I explored the […]
10 Reasons Why People Don’t Build With Natural Materials: Have you ever puzzled over why so many people choose to buy homes at outrageous prices that require 20-30 year […]
Get the Basics Right: Make sure you get the basics right so your earthbag home is safe, sound and durable. As obvious as this […]
Natural Homes Maps: Here are two useful maps for natural builders. The map from Natural Homes.org shows locations of natural homes. Actually there […]
Out Buildings as Dwellings: This post continues the discussion about Counties with Few or No Building Codes, which has become our number one most […]
Earthbag Shear Test: Here’s Patti Stouter’s report on her earthbag shear test. The quick way to find out how to build strong enough […]
Earthbag Building Facebook Page: I got the following email a few minutes ago. Luke just won himself a free copy of my upcoming Earthbag […]
How to Find Answers about Earthbag Building: Are you spending lots of time searching for earthbag information? Using the search engines on this blog and at EarthbagBuilding.com […]
Earthbag Building Guide Acknowledgements: The peer review process for this book has included input from other earthbag builders. I would like to thank all […]
Liens’ Tatooine Residence: Hello — we built a “double ecodome” here in Lucerne Valley, California, a rural area in the high Mojave desert. […]
Earthbag Building Guide Table of Contents 2: More book reviews: “This book is very useful for anyone interested in working with earthbags…even those who have experience, since […]
Earthbag Building Guide Table of Contents 1: More book reviews: “I have built with earthbags for over twenty years, having helped develop the concept with Nader Khalili […]
Earthbag Building Guide Now Available!: Earthbag Building Guide: Vertical Walls Step-by-Step By Owen Geiger Much has been learned about earthbag building over the last few […]
Why is there an Energy Crisis?: A BIG issue in everyone’s lives today is increasing fuel costs. (Don’t be fooled by [temporary] low prices. They’ll be […]
More Details About Eternally Solar’s / Earthbag Building System: Today’s post is from Dr. Johnny Anderton of of Eternally Solar / EarthBagBuild. We’ve been discussing various aspects of their […]
Eternally Solar / Earthbag Building System Follow-up: The following information has been graciously provided by Dr. Johnny Anderton of Eternally Solar / EarthBagBuild. Their building system is […]
Comments from a Building Inspector and Engineer: Question to Building Inspector: We are looking at moving to rural Livingston Parish, Lousiana and planning on building our own […]
A Sad Story of What Can Happen Without a Permit: One of our readers sent this the other day. “We owned 70 acres in Lake County CO, surrounded by national […]
Wind Testing of Earthbag Wall: Breaking news. This just in from Brandon Ross, P.E. whose team has just completed an earthbag wind test in Florida. […]
Low Cost Land with Few Codes: I posed the following questions to Darlene Yarbrough, a real estate agent in Crestone, Colorado to get her response: Our […]
Outlaw Building: This anonymous post comes from someone who’s fed up with intrusive government regulations that dictate how you can build on […]
Licensed Contractor Needed in Maryland: I just received this rather urgent email from a family in Maryland. They need a licensed contractor immediately. Please email […]
Passive Houses in the New York Times: Gayle Fleming at EcoGayle’s Blog recommended an article in the New York Times that addresses the effectiveness of passive homes: […]
Working with Building Officials: While Owen and I often point out the problems associated with dealing with codes and the officials who administer them, […]
List of Needs to Expedite Earthbag Growth: Bit by bit, word of earthbag building is spreading. Even though no large industry or organization has thrown their might […]
Puerto Vallarta Model Home: I have been consulting with Mike Parker who started www.childrenofthedump.org in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico about how to build inexpensive, ecological […]
Earthbag Game-changer: We believe the combination of new developments in earthbag building is a game-changer, a breakthrough that is gradually pushing earthbag […]
Standard Guide for Design of Earthen Wall Building Systems: Development and passage of ASTM International E2392-10, Standard Guide for Design of Earthen Wall Building Systems. This four-year project has […]
Earthbag House in Austin: Louis Burns, a writer and former real estate agent, toured a newly completed Eco-dome in Austin and wrote an eye-opening […]
Amirta – Divine Nectar Retreat Cabin: We have a new complete project page up at www.earthbagbuilding.com: the Amirta – Divine Nectar Retreat Cabin in the high […]
Attaching Shear Walls to Earthbag Walls: The specifications for reinforced earthbag walls in seismic regions from Structure1.com describe how to attach shear walls to earthbag walls. […]
Reinforced Earthbag Specifications: I am extremely happy to announce another major first for earthbag building. Precision Engineering has generously provided drawings and specifications […]
Earthbag Building Blog 3rd Anniversary: This week is the 3rd anniversary of Earthbag Building Blog. A lot has happened this past year, and our blog […]
A Review of Living in an Underground House: I came across this great article at Mother Earth News magazine and just had to share it. Merle Alix describes […]
Earthbag Building: The Next Big Thing?: For those who don’t know, earthbag structures are constructed with bags of moist soil or other suitable materials, stacked in […]
Friction and Tensile Strength of EB Components: Patti Stouter has published another earthbag technical report. It is a summary of the state of testing to date, and […]
Specifics of Nabil Taha’s Engineered Earthbag Designs: I just posted the recent news about gaining engineering approval for earthbag construction through PSE, Nabil Taha’s engineering firm in […]
Engineer-approved Earthbag Plans: We’re very happy to announce what is perhaps the greatest news ever for earthbag building. Nabil Taha, Ph.D., P.E., has […]
How to Build a House That Will Self Destruct and Burn Like Crazy: We spend a lot of time here explaining how to build strong, safe houses. Let’s look at conventional code-approved building […]
Earthbag in Comparison to Adobe: You can still see adobe ruins scattered across the southwest. Even though the roofs have long since rotted away, the […]
Installing Electrical Boxes: It’s very easy to install electrical boxes in earthbag walls. The process involves two basic steps: 1. Anchors: Add anchors […]
To Code or Not to Code?: We often get questions about where in the U.S. it is possible to build a home without some authority looking […]
Counties with Few or No Building Codes: Many readers are looking for inexpensive land where they can build their earthbag home. Unfortunately, building codes are often overly […]
Mobile Housing Can Circumvent Codes Legally: Restrictive building codes are forcing people to look for alternative housing. Building a portable trailer is one of the best […]
Choose Rural Areas with Few Building Codes: For ease of getting a permit for earthbag houses, buy rural land with few or no building restrictions. Ask building […]
Some Thoughts about Durability and Financing: Jorge Dominguez has been building earthbag houses in Hawaii for some time, and he recently emailed me some of his […]
Radio Interview with Kelly Hart: In May of 2009, Kelly Hart was interviewed for nearly an hour by Veronica Entwistle for her “Paradigm Shifters” Radio […]
Finding the Right Community: Where are you going to build your sustainable home? For the best possible life you’ll want to find a community […]
Another Code Approved Earthbag Project!: I find it very heartening to notice that several earthbag dwellings have been approved by building authorities recently. The most […]
Arizona Shop Structure: John Annesley chose earthbags to build the walls for his large shop in the Arizona desert because they will never […]
Observations about the Marketability of Earthbag Building: Jorge Dominguez has been helping his friend Mark Hanson build the first permitted earthbag dome house in Hawaii. After several […]