[GSBN] earthen floors

[John Glassford]

G ' day

Back home after an eventful and wonderful adventure on the Mountains of the
Moon in Uganda:

I posted a few stories to my Rotary club web site if interested just scroll
down the page:

http://club.coolamonrotary.com

Climate change is happening and the local people are worried about the
shrinking of the glaciers and the fact that the habitat is changing at a
remarkable rate the chameleons they point out are moving further and
further up the mountain as the tundra changes to rain forest.  A remarkable
place untouched by development and it was a very very tough climb.

Re earthen floors we have made several now all here at Ganmain.  One in
particular is my favourite and we poured our earth render mix onto a raised
floor, i.e. piers bearers and joists with corrugated iron as the support
for the earth floor.  Around 4" thick, this was in our marriage room.  We
sealed it with linseed oil two coats only and then painted it with a tile
paint.  Our largest "earthen" floor was in our living room and here we made
the floor out of 4" of compressed road base and then put down 2" of a 12:1
sand cement mix and then bedded in some very old slate.  We also did
another floor in our bath house again suspended and this time we used a
lime/earth/chaff mix and it worked a treat see all three floors here:

http://glassford.com.au/main/projects-menu/straw-bale-bed-and-breakfast

I am a big fan of earthen floors and still learning how best to seal them.
 For me personally if you have the time then they are by far the best way
to go from a cost point of view, an environmental point of view and for
shear beauty, they cannot be beaten, they also appear to be a whole lot
softer to walk on v cement slabs.  Our next challenge is 240 square metres
of earthen floor in the BIG house we are building in Ganmain.

It is great to be back home in the den and back at work on Monday and 2012
is shaping up to be a big year for Huff n Puff.

Have a great 2012 and may you bale up many straw homes this year.

Kind regards
The Straw Wolf
Huff 'n' Puff Constructions
http://www.glassford.com.au
61 2 6927 6027
In Australia (02) 6927 6027
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