Details on the Mud House

I have been wanting to find the time and energy to sit and write about the current Natural Building project that I'm involved in for the last month and a half here in Thermal, California.

the roof structure

Here at the Flying Disc Ranch, Eric Lower and myself have been working long hours building this small but really stylish duplex house with lofts. We began by measuring, squaring the foundations, that here in the desert only needed to be 2 feet deep. After pouring the cement for each of them we were ready to start building the self-sustaining roof/loft structure. It consisted of 6x6 poles and 6x12 beams with 2x8 rafters.

me and mud

When the roof was set in place we started with the walls, this is were the fun part comes in. Working with mud is really enjoyable and make you feel good because it is full of Negative Ions :-)

Natural Building is based on building houses out of local and natural material and as much as possible staying away form manufactured and chemical material. Of course, especially when it comes to building according to municipal codes, some times you have to use a little cement or other manufactured materials... So here is a list of some of the main material being used and where they came from.
> Lumber - a local family owned supplier
> Sand and Clay - right of the foot of the mountain here in the Coachella Valley
> StrawBales - from El Centro south of the Salten Sea
> Palm Laths and Frowns - from our Date Palms

Straw bale wall with electrical

The centre wall that divides the two separate living areas, we made it out of strawbales for its great sound proofing properties. For the East wall we made it out of laths, otherwise known as the French Technique, all of the laths were cut from the centre of palm leafs and the fiber for the mud mix of that wall was palm frowns also from the farm.

French Technique or "Quincha"

The North and East walls of the North Unit, we decided to use the technique of "Paja Encofrada" or Compressed Straw. It is a fast and easy way to put up a wall by wetting lose straw with pure clay slip, like a salad dressing. Mix it up till every straw is moistened by clay slip, then compress it into the frame of the wall (supported temporarily by plywood on either side). Beside it being fast and easy to build, it also has great thermal and sound proofing properties.

we have started to put on the first coat of
mud on the bottom half

To all these walls there will be at least 3 coats of mud before it is finished. The site is rapidly changing every day especially now that we have another worker, Adolfo helping everyday. If any of you take interest in getting your hands muddy feel free to contact me and come down to have some fun with Negative Ions.

Do check out the link below as it contain photos from all phases of the project.

Click here to view a slide show of the Building Site

Enjoy the photos and videos on my flickr page (click here)

Work & Play in the Desert

It has been almost one month that I have been living and working here at The Flying Disc Ranch. I decided to stick around because we are building a house of natural construction material (mud, sand and straw) we will use different techniques and explore them in different parts of the house. For now we are building the self-sustaining roof structure.

We have been working about 50 hours a week and take Sundays off, go somewhere nice... We visited the Dos Palmas Oasis and The Joshua Tree, both were really incredible places.

Joshua Tree


Eric and I, up high on a rock


Dos Palmas Oasis


Dos Palmas Oasis


Oasis Video

I'm waiting till April to find out if I get accepted to do a 14 week, Permaculture Internship at the Lama Fondation in New Mexico. It would be an spectacular experience!

Enjoy the photos and videos on my flickr page (click here)