Earthen Bag

Target SDGs

Market Suggested Retail Price

$16.00

Target Users (Target Impact Group)

Household, Community, NGOs

Distributors / Implementing Organizations

Varies. While some organizations have marketed and commercialized earthen bag construction manuals and equipment, others have been developing free construction manuals.

Competitive Landscape

Direct competitors include Bottle Bricks and AECT Impact 2001A Compressed Earth Block Machine.

Regions

Worldwide

Manufacturing/Building Method

Earthbag as a construction material has been used all over the world in different countries and several construction sites. Specially, in low-income regions and post disaster affected areas. The earth used in the bags and the rubble for the foundation can be locally found. Polypropylene bags, barbed wire, rebar, sand and cement have to be purchased.

Intellectural Property Type

Patent

User Provision Model

Users can obtain this product by constructing it themselves. Some organizations like CalEarth and Good Earth Global commercialize earthbags construction manuals, equipment, and building designs. There are also other organizations that offer free construction manuals. Earthbag can be produced anywhere the necessary resources are available. These are basically bags (burlap or polypropylene sacks) and soil.

Distributions to Date Status

The exact number is unknown, however, earthbag construction material is a very widespread technique, used all around the globe.

Design Specifications

Earthbag construction is made by filling polymer bags with locally available earth. Even though local earth is used, it's very important to ensure the correct soil mixture to allow the earth to be compacted as it is tamped inside the bags. Stabilizers such as lime or portland cement can also be added to improve the resistance of construction. The bags are generally made from polypropylene because it is a strong, durable, and semi-permeable material. The filled bags are laid in their desired form and each layer is tamped before laying the next layer. Barbed wire is placed between the layers to hold the bags at the proper position, and prevent the wall to get out of plumb. There are several online resources that give very detailed instructions on how to build earthbag constructions.

Product Schematics

Technical Support

The building can be maintained by local labour with Earth Building construction experience.

Replacement Components

N/A

Lifecycle

Built and maintained properly, an Earthbag building should stand for centuries

Manufacturer Specified Performance Parameters

There are many different manufacturers of earthbag constructions in the market. But, in general, earthbag is commonly described as an low-cost and low-impact technology with great thermal insulation and earthquake resistance.

Vetted Performance Status

Tests results available in the studies provided by testing organizations are related to soil mixtures used, this is, there are a wide range of results using different mixtures. As every soil is different from place to place the most important part of construction is to find the correct soil mixture. Besides that, tests concluded that earthbags have a much lower lateral strength than compressive strength, while seismic resistance is to be tested even if it suggests that earthbags have great resistance to earthquakes.

Safety

Builders should wear appropriate protective equipment such as hardhats, gloves and safety glasses while working to protect against physical injury commonly associated with heavy construction. Earth bag construction does not require the operation of any large machinery.

Complementary Technical Systems

On exposed walls, many suggest to use a protective topcoat, embed tile or pebbles in earth plaster, use lime plaster or cement plaster on sandy earthbag fill.

Academic Research and References

Compliance with regulations

None

Evaluation methods

Earthbag are mostly tested by compression strength, lateral load tests and soil mixture (clay, sand, gravel) parameters.

Other Information

This video gives general information about earthbag construction: Cal-Earth Sustainable Architecture