
What is ‘superadobe’? - pseudolus
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190228-what-is-superadobe
======
justaaron
of COURSE the Beeb isn't taking comments upon this article. I built a "super-
adobe" or "earthbag" house, here in Portugal. It was utterly destroyed by the
bush fires of 2017, and I do not recommend this technique for multiple
reasons:

1)no structural integrity to the actual fill of the bags, unless you add
cement, in which case why are you building with earth bags?

2) poly bags are very un-eco, as I'm still cleaning up the remains of my
house. It degrades under UV light and many bags burst before being rendered
even, and had to be replaced.

~~~
tinix
Aren't you supposed to cover the bags with more clay or stucco or something?
Much like doing a cobb house. Cobb is fireproof, and earthquake resistant.
Cobb also resists UV degradation. If you're leaving the bags exposed, that's
wrong.

~~~
debacle
Yes. You're also supposed to used barbed wire and rebar to reinforce the
structure.

------
pjscott
If you'd prefer a (much) higher information-to-fluff ratio, the wikipedia page
delivers:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superadobe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superadobe)

------
blacksmith_tb
Along similar lines are Earthship homes[1], which use old car tires filled
with rammed earth (a plus, since people often can't get rid of tires).

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship)

------
michaelbuckbee
This is also referred to as "earthbag" building - the examples in the article
all look kind of out there so I thought there might be interest in this video
of a family building something that's closer to a traditional building out of
earthbags.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Xl8f2J3sY&list=PLqweMXveAR...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Xl8f2J3sY&list=PLqweMXveARYCGCS3McZG7b7-6CgCKmdJz&index=4)

