Dan's Dirt Cheap Hyper-Adobe Tiny House: The Full Story

in this video we're going to learn about building with Hyper Adobe a dirt cheap do-it-yourself technique that my friend Dan used to build his one-of-a-kind tiny home like many others Dan dreamed of escaping the system to live a debt-free off-grid life however as a musician and a poet with no construction experience and almost no money he had to dig deep and come up with a creative solution to make his dreams into a reality he decided to learn how to build with Earth bags and Hyper Adobe and after 3 years of hard work and determination Dan has achieved his goal what he created is inspirational and I wanted to be the first to share his story Dan's sense of humor is contagious so I jumped on the opportunity to interview him and honestly it was the most fun I've probably ever had shooting a video so in just a second I'm going to pass the mic to my friend so that he can tell us what he learned over the last 3 years building his hyper Adobe home plus all the tracks in this video are his original songs so if you want to check out his music you can find a link in the description below lastly if you're new to the channel we have a lot more inspirational and educational content like this including some fun and informative offerings we have on our website like the new Earthship 101 a beginner guide so if that's the kind of thing you're into then consider subscribing and be sure to click the Bell to be notified when new videos are released don't forget to share this video with a friend if you think it'll brighten up their day and as always if you have a question or just want to say hi you can find me in the comments section below and [Music] enjoy I'm alive good morning everyone good morning everyone it's a great day to be a cloud in the sky and wonder why came all the way out here dang it wait so um uh you're going to interview me what do you want me to say hi I'm Willie Wonka this is my Wonderland hi I'm Dale Earnhart this is my race car factory this is where we grow the tumble weed I just came out and started digging I knew absolutely nothing I'd never held a circle saw I had never hardly used power tools all I knew was dirt plus bags is somehow going to equal house wondering if you [Music] run in the heart of the [Music] desert will you ride trans your [Music] pleases under the [Music] in was paying a lot of rent just stressed out you know you know I'm just like you have to really work to sustain yourself when you're just tra in The Matrix it just sucks yeah so I wanted to escape I just wanted to get out of um you know this boring contrived typical life and uh spend less time working and make less money and need less money and simplify my life you know Co hit and the Pandy hit and uh I just lost it I just every all my plans fell through and uh it's just a familiar story and um luckily I I got some uh sweet money from the government it was almost like the government was giving me a severance check it was like here's the money you need so that you don't need us anymore uh even though I didn't have hardly any money to start I think it had like maybe $1,000 starting out and just coming out here and digging yeah the only thing that was here was a meditation Circle and the loop the driveway Loop and a pile of wood chips that's where we slept little meditation Circle over there this is now our kitchen I was camping out in a tent uh when the first month I came out here and doing a bunch of sage bundles I was just totally preoccupied with that uh for like an hour and this huge dust devil comes and just like it's like a tornado and and I just ducked and then I didn't think anything of it and I just kept doing Sage bundles for another hour and then I looked back to go home like go to the tent and it was gone completely vanished Within all line of sight with all your belongings all guitar in it camping gear everything notebook everything I needed a quick win I needed to get out of the elements uh and after living in a tent for 3 months I was like I really want to just be inside sometimes so I decided to go with the super Adobe below grade and put the house 3et below grade because it helps moderate the temperature it is more stable I also just like the way a Subterranean house feels totally just something I sketched up in my notebook I actually got the inspiration from Cal Earth and this guy named Harry who actually built a bunch of earthbag Domes right uh in in my neighborhood so my first thing I I did was just get out here and just build a test wall and I love this test wall so much because every mistake is in here every mistake that you could possibly do with Earth bag well you notice at first this is totally wonky I didn't use a compass at all I put the bags right side up which is more inefficient than turning them sideways when you turn them sideways your bags become 2 to 3 in higher yes your wall is slightly less wide but you don't need that much uh Adobe uh it's it performs really well as a a thermal battery uh even at 11 in I didn't use enough barb wire I actually built initially built this wall a little bit higher and it started to get really wobbly I could just push it and it would just wobble and feel like it was going to fall over I initially came out and I just chalked the perimeter of where I wanted the house to be uh I actually used kiche which is this wh like material you compressed volcanic ash is very hard it's it's almost like cement it's very hard digging and I thought I could dig out this whole house myself and I got a few weeks into it and I threw my back out and I was going to give up because I had no money the house needed to get dug out with a back ho I was in a motel I was like what am I going to do with my life and I asked my my best friend at the time can I borrow 10 10,000 bucks and he said no and then uh I was like what am I going to do the next day the Pua money hit uh it was back pay plus 600 for each week yeah like six six grand 7 Grand just hit my account and I was like all right we can we can keep going so basically yeah we're 3T underground Subterranean right now uh grade is about up here so what dictated a lot of things in this build was having to put the windows above grade the windows being as high as they are that also dictates how high the ceiling is going to be actually if you think about it having the house lower made me half to have higher ceilings mhm so it's more work yeah it's more work it's okay it's okay because it's worth it it worked out I love High ceilings I tried to use funu sacred geometry just the numerology um the whole time and one of the favorite things I did was just concentrate on three triangles remind me of three three big windows looking right at Three Peaks um three sets of Windows three rooms in the house uh things on the the light fixture three fire pits three I could go on so um I I just I tried to just make it really uh how I would want a house to be and just customize it and make it really fun too and not be too serious about it either and and just not really take myself too seriously like look I'm building I'm still technically building a tiny house it's not a big deal you know it's not that big of a deal yeah it's going to take three seasons to work on and finish but yeah it's not that big of a deal it's just a house anyway but but I don't think there's any house in the whole world I've ever seen that is kind of like this this house is very unique um just yeah I just not many people are doing hyper Adobe in the first place hyper Adobe that I ran after I went above grade was continuous porous but still plastic similar to like oranges grapefruit Citrus at the grocery store that kind of food grade mesh you can get a roll of that very inexpensive and I use less than two rolls um for the whole house uh I think for hyper Adobe bag material I spent maybe like $70 how many how many dollars like $800 70 or 80 yeah so dirt plus bag equals house dirt plus bag equals house uh dirt plus bag really does equal house yeah and uh you know with the Earth bag individual bag I would say pounds uh and you do technically Tamp both and that's a huge part you have to do that um but when I think of hyper Adobe I think of uh like a lei or snake like a big or snake it turned out that Dan wasn't the only one building with Hyper Adobe in his neighborhood and luckily for him they were thinking about how to make it faster and more efficient so Dan attended a community Workshop where he learned how to make a DIY low Tech Tool called a hyper Adobe ninja created by this guy John Paul Garland so if you want to learn more about that you can go to Adobe ninja.com and I'll put a link in the description but for now I'll let Dan explain the rest so this is an adobe ninja uh it has an earthbag funnel a attached to a dolly and this is what we use to do hyper Adobe and basically it's just a bunch of um cheap stuff from Harbor Freight um but it's a funnel that's specifically made for Earth bags um you can find that on Amazon for 60 bucks it's a dolly from Harbor Freight and it is just a bunch of scrap wood so the timeline basic timeline is me coming in May digging all May uh then about to give up and then hire backo in June have first work party at the last day of June complete all the uh bag work by October but in August uh I cap the dome last bag for the Dome and we're gonna fill it right now you guys ready last bag [Music] and then in November I got roofed in barely just in the N the last day of the metal on the roof was the last 50 degree day or something like that it was like we were just like yeah bust and butt and stressed what was it like at that moment when the roof went on what about that that day that was one of the most epic days hoisting these huge beams yeah your beams are uh it took 12 people to lift one beam and uh I could not have done it without Community without support started out with love I'm just picking it back [Music] up see I can't help but [Music] change Earth building natural building is a community [Music] activity you know I love Dan's story because it's inspirational and heartwarming however we filmed the interview once the house was already finished and I'm starting to realize that in order to teach you about hyper Adobe we're going to have to turn the clocks back and fill in some of the gaps so in order to do that I'm going to have to bring Dan over to explain some things for you oh hey neighbor these are my 10 steps to doing hyper Adobe okay let's break it down ER eror step one plan and design step two gather materials step three mix soil step four get your buckets step five W the wall step six lay that bag step seven compass and adjust step eight T step nine Compass the Jo level step 10 final T so plan and design is a really fun part dreamy part and what's cool about Earth bag and Hyper does you can make any shape you want to circle square octagon you know so it's it's really fun to get creative and play around with you know numbers and geometry just have fun with that is the main thing and that'll inspire a lot of the next steps to happen uh gather materials is pretty simple and easy you just get a pick shovel tamper and just you know just a few really basic things and you're often running with some you know buckets you know so now it's time to prepare your materials mainly you want to sling the mesh on the funnel gently as not to rip or tear any section of the mesh if you do rip or tear I find it easier to just go ahead and cut your losses cut the mesh and then start getting to work with that don't forget to tie a simple square knot at the end ideally you will sling enough mesh on your here to run out an entire course uh step three is quite easy I have a special method where uh I let the water soak into the soil overnight and if you do do that right then you'll have a very little effort when you mix come to mix your soil and work the next day okay okay okay so really you you need to get a pile of soil together I advise doing that with a backhoe um it's kind of a drag having a big machine you can also do it by hand if you really want want to but once you do have your pile of soil you're going to U make it into the optimal moisture content for hyper Adobe so what you need to do is ideally pre-wet it the night before but I did not uh with this batch so you want to just fill up a bunch of 5 gallon buckets of water and dig trenches so you get your mtic and you're kind of creating like a moat like situation so that the water can just sit in here and sink down in this little layer and then you get the the pick and mad and mix it up and you're constantly throwing water on mixing it to get to uh kind of like a oatmeal is dry oatmeal is like uh consistency this clumpy bit is tooo wet that's too spongy and it's going to sink through the mesh um but something like this that's really what you want yeah feels nice once you got your soil mix correct and feeling good you're going to just put it in some buckets and preparation to lay the bag bucketing is very simple um I advise just you know using your hands and getting on your hands and knees and just filling that bucket with your hands bare hands um for just a few seconds and it and it's faster that way wetting the wall when it's it's necessary uh you could actually just pour the water right on the wall or you can use a splash brush um to save water and then you lay that puppy oh yeah okay okay you're just pouring the dirt from the buckets into the funnel and then shimmy and shimmy and shimmying that right along and that's how you keep on trucking so I condensed a lot of steps into step six laying the bag uh at first you need to sling the mesh on the tube and then you're going to Stage the buckets and there's certain techniques to shimmy in and Shake in the hyper Adobe ninja along and keeping the workflow going with your team and when we're staging we want to Stage it so that the bag drops right where we want it to start and because the soil is moist and we've wetted the wall here it binds each layer binds to the other layer creating one big monolithic shell structure and we want to have enough room behind the ninja to climb up and be able to start it and and also be able to grab the soil that we need to get it started then you Compass this is dictating the shape of your structure so once you've laid a course you want to then um Center it on the wall so that it's ready for tamping and level it a a general sense of level because this is flexible form architecture we can kind of correct our mistakes but we allowed ourselves a lot of uh flexibility in the previous courses so now we need to be more stringent uh and detail oriented towards the end and we're getting to the point where the whole project would be level so the roof will be less problematic to put on so once you've adjusted the bag and compassed it you'll want to start tamping I usually prefer lighter Strokes to Big heavier Strokes especially at first one because the the bag is still a bit vulnerable you don't want to have any rips or tears this first Tamp is just a pre-amp ultimately You' like to go around and Tamp three times tamping is kind of exhausting it's nice to share it uh the workload with other people so protect yourself while tamping and release the grip right as the end of the stroke happens when the tamper hits the bag to avoid hurting yourself it's also a really good idea to wear closed toed shoes while you're tamping and then you'll return and Compass again uh and then you know coming back compassing adjusting leveling again and tamping again um you know shouldn't really take too much time M slap that bad boy the hardest time the hardest one do it again all right but don't forget clean that Tamp tamper you know don't let let that Earth accumulate on there don't forget to scrape your tamper of course before and after all these steps you'll want to revisit your plan and your design this can be a lot simpler than you think keep in mind you can do hyper Adobe without a ninja with just mesh and a funnel here is my friend and he's going to show you exactly how you do it but basically you're making an individual bag and tying it off after every um time you fill the funnel with soil that way you can get started with this stuff yourself and with almost no money you know you're not done just keep that in mind once you have finished your hyper Adobe you know you do want to plaster it as soon as possible to protect your work your bags your plastic will degrade uh from the intense UV of the Desert Sun or wherever Sun you are um and so there is special bags you can get that are UV resistant but I advise just going ahead and no matter what just getting it covered um it's not very hard Adobe is a little bit of Earth sand and water yes optional fibers with straw and such but um yeah with just those uh three ingredients you could cover and protect your hyper Adobe so you can see how we have plastered the hyper Adobe that was the first priority now we're com back and getting a thin slurry coat on the super Adobe or the Earth bag one of the benefits of the hyper Adobe is that you don't have to do this you can just put in uh you know your plaster right from the start and it'll stick to the Earth through the mesh so this is what a first coat of plaster looks like on hyper Adobe wall and uh below it we just have a basic slurry that covers the bags just to protect it uh we I think we do that by hand without a trial or anything so they're about to get plastic just like the top right there um and yeah that's it so now let's talk about insulation because yes hyper Adobe is excellent thermal Mass but it does not offer very good insulation um so unfortunately because I you know didn't know a lot um I had a lot of gaps in my structure so I decided to go with the dreaded spray foam uh people joked and said called it hot flame and Cheeto Adobe now uh and it was a bear of a project to get prepped for spray foam was so much work oh my gosh to prepare you had to put plastic everywhere and tape everywhere and just protect everything that you wanted to protect and I had to do the whole um fascia and underside of the um you know the roof there and it was just such a big deal had to dig a whole new trench to insulate two feet into the ground and oh my gosh it was so much work I don't really advise it it's not environmentally friendly at all I now advise pmus um or scoria bag um to insulate your natural home instead of spray foam but it had its benefits um get offering a very good seal of the structure so you know to each his own I also got to paint it purple one unique feature of this house was something I call the megaphone 1 2 3 [Music] 4 there's two Wing walls that are used as an entrance to the house and I wanted to cover it somehow but one limitation of um building with Earth is that you you have to be sort of stable and have a good foundation you can't do crazy whirly designs or any completely any shape you want but with a little bit of rebar and la and cement you can [Music] um out [Music] of come and [Music] [Music] me October 2022 I have finished the whole house practically speaking it has shelving it has a wood stove it stays warm even in the bitter High Desert Winters and I am just so grateful and so happy it's given me a sense of security like I could go out into the world and no matter what happens out there I can come home be warm and have somewhere to really come home to um so that's allowed me to take more creative risks and um meet more interesting types of people that take that lifestyle use it to do their art make music it's been a stepping stool for being able to do even bigger and better things will

Channel: The Off Grid Guru

Views: 123,230

Keywords: hyperadobe, earthbag, superadobe, tiny house, tiny home, Cal Earth, Taos, ferro cement, hyper adobe

Id: ljDT9tqG7hc

Length: 26min 35sec (1595 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 28 2023