My husband and I have just brought a block of vacant land and are interested in ideas for a small but cheap home to build ...is there a site that lists all the different materials available. We are thinking something different to your basic brick home. We like mud brick if you have any info on that?
2007-04-10 10:30:20 · 5 answers · asked by blahblahblah 5 in Home & Garden ➔ Do It Yourself (DIY)
look into log cabin homes...they are gorgeous!!! u can drywall the inside of them if you go with the split log. google log cabin homes..surely this would be an awesome compromise to brick. good luck
2007-04-10 12:11:55 · answer #1 · answered by Bear 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Rammed earth or adobe? The mud brick is adobe and quite common in arid climates around the world and in the US Southwest. However, unless you make the adobe bricks yourself, they are not cheaper than traditional building materials. Not just any soil will work either.
Rammed earth is buidling a frame and packing the earth into the frame......There's one next door and it's holding up well. The outer coat is traditional stucco.
Another option is the foam core construction where foam forms are filled with concrete. Great insulation and rather termite resistant.
Post and beam construction allows for wide open interiors.
Straw bale construction is popular here right now. Bales are stacked and secured with rebar then stuccoed over.
I'm sure you can Google for more info on all of these.
2007-04-10 11:11:36 · answer #2 · answered by fluffernut 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Um. As an undergrad architect, the cost would be in the millions if not billions and there is something that architects find misleading. It's called Green washing. Green washing can be defined by thinking eco friendly technology can make your home look green. It takes more than solar pannels to make a house green. You can try passive solar design but in india, that's more of a warm tropical climate. Passive solar design and all that eco friendly devices wouldn't work that well. It would be great if people thought changing their lifestyle and making their houses more energy efficient. If people thought buying solar pannels is being eco friendly, that's where it goes wrong. PV cells are expensive and have a higher embodied energy. Another thing is that.... it's not the technology that should do the changing... it's us humans that need to do the changing. Take for example, you have a house with an incandescent light systems and one with flourescent t5 lighting. In both scenarios you don't save much energy because it depends on how much activity you have or do. The person with the incandescent lights will turn on the lights less often than the person who has energy efficient lights but the person with the t5 lights will keep their lights on depending on how rich they are.
2016-04-01 07:42:19 · answer #3 · answered by Heather 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
To be honest, the isn't a much cheaper way to build than traditional wood frame on slab or block foundation. The biggest home costs are what you do on the inside. If you use very low cost flooring, cabinets, and fixtures, that is the cheapest way to go. Another big cost is labor. Most people don't realize how cheap a house can be built if you really do it all yourself.
2007-04-10 12:20:27 · answer #4 · answered by morris 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the mother earth news used to have all that info...but make sure that your town permits building with those unusual items.
2007-04-10 10:34:09 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋