Rammed Earth : You won’t Believe How They Build This!

build shows on the road today we're heading to Marfa Texas actually not really the road more like the air my buddy Branson has shown us a ram to earth house come join me in marbeth I'll see you there hey guys just got off the plane we are in West Texas outside of Marfa I've got a really cool job site to show you today I'm here with Branson from pilgrim building company based out of Austin and Kyle is with an abler which is doing a bunch of the work out here we got a bunch of guys and check out what we just pulled up to you this is a jobsite doing a type of construction you've probably never seen before called rammed earth we're gonna take a full tour they're actually doing some of it right now so this is a really cool job site tour let's get going oh man look at that building hi Branson what are we looking at here brother this is a Lake Plato project that we're building out of rammed earth the way I like to describe rammed earth is we're making sedimentary rock each one of those layers we place the dirt in a four much like a concrete form and packed it down and whatever we're done it's as hard as rock and you get up to 1800 psi so this building is not going anywhere for a while dang I notice the Bobcats run in the back what's going on Kyle they're mixing up fresh batch of rammed earth right now Bobcats kind of danced together and mix in Portland cement we're about 9% Portland okay and then and then is the earth from the site or where did all the earth come from we're getting it from a local quarry okay so it's so it's actually a quarried like a decomposed granite brother right right and what size is that I mean it looks like sand from here but it's a mixture of 3/8 - and quarter - oh man let's go check out the building guys so two-foot thick so we were only seeing part of it here that's right that's right and that that allows for a couple things one it has a thermal mass it's not like a regular and insulated wall so the more mass you have in that wall the more retains heat and can radiate that heat wow that's really cool let's walk around this way just cuz the Bobcat noise but we're seeing the layers of this right so this is like I don't know maybe six or seven inches thick on each layer roughly that's right I don't know whatever we started was much thicker that we compact it down to get to cheapest smaller layer that's pretty cool and then you've got a concrete slab maybe what's going on down here at the base there's perimeter concrete walls that we form off of and then there's an MPhil slap that we poured after that walls were in place gotcha so it's actually a stem wall that you're seeing here at the base and then they're they're forming on top of that and then not much overhang here just a little short we're we're not in typical Austin weather though are we here there Branson that's right this house in Lake Flatow does has done this house especially well it is passive solar orientated and so not only do you have any glazing is recessed back in the wall a bit so you don't have direct sunlight to it but also in this cooling climate the cooler climate we want the Sun to hit these walls the idea is that the wall should maintain a consistent temperature much like a basement would and then northern climate it's not going up or down as the day's temperature goes higher and low it's saying a consistent temperature that's pretty cool and because it's thick it's got that thermal mass so it's it's staying relatively cool inside the building during the daytime and then at night the sky is gonna radiate out and take that heat out of the building that's cool so now that we can see it in the inside now you can see how thick these walls are look at that it's two-foot thick the windows are set in the center and then they poured the slab later on this I guess right that's right and then how does the framing work on this to get the roof framing in we did in the wall because we have that two feet thick he goes there's a Ledge that are framing rest on top okay so basically there's a small pair of bit of Ramgarh the thickness Jois that goes around the perimeter man that's really cool and then what's the detail here you get just a black painted to buy it looks like up in here and then my guess is there's a wood ceiling coming into that problem right so there's a reveal that's gonna have a shadow line and so we back painted that just so we're not seeing anything light it just makes that shadow that much more crisp and then there's obviously a bunch of services in the slab what's underneath those preamps yeah so we've got radiant heat here this part of Texas primarily is a requires heating with these walls the energy consulted dinner didn't think it needed any cooling and so we do made sure to provide heat this structure does not have any cooling there's some other structures that we put some auxilary cooling in for those cool and then you'll have electrical coming up here and it looks like maybe some I saw some blue logo is over there there's probably was there cabinetry or something over here and look how pretty these walls are no I would think that if these were dirt walls one of the questions people are gonna ask is won't it want that dirt wash off and you know this is the finished wall so they're not gonna be a problem in the future well it's stabilized so not only is it pneumatically stabilized so that it's compressed but also with that Portland content it's act acts as a binder the other Android projects we've done you could actually put sealers on it as well kind of that'll help bond it to prevent that dusting but in many ways it performs like an old brick where it's very solid but if you sit there and pick at it with something you can yeah and how many psi is it when it's all when it's all rammed down like that typically around 1600s sometimes as high as 1800 psi okay so not quite as high as a 3000 psi concrete but not low that's pretty that's pretty amazingly strong especially when it's two-foot thick right that's right all right so if this has radiant flooring my guess is there's a mechanical room here somewhere right where's that located oh man look at this compound this is really cool so we've got actually how many buildings on site card there's eight eight buildings and how many total square feet under roof about six thousand square feet under roof okay oh man that's cool so that's formwork down there let's go check that in a minute but what are these buildings here okay so this has got those mechanicals that we were just talking about so probably those insulated tubes that I'm seeing in the floor that's probably your radiant floor tubing right so you got a boiler or something in here oh man look at all that holy cow look at all that running underground that is a spiderweb of conduit dang and then this is all exiting so this is all gonna have a hot water and at some point that will exit out of the building here that's pretty cool so your slabs get for it later okay so that first building was office this is mechanical what's directly across the haciendas from us here the gym flash banquet area okay can we check out this girl yeah so we've got we've got your windows and doors sitting about halfway what's what's holding those windows and doors in place we've got some wood bucks that are inside the rammed earth that we've camped in that we were screwing into the wooden windows and doors into okay so there's so there's a some kind of a lead in there and what are these metal weddings I'm seeing right here this is the lighting tape lighting it was actually in the formwork Wow and check this out where he's got a doorway here he's got a let in as well right there what is that we're looking at that's western red cedar that we've embedded in the wall interesting so cedar I would think you might use pressure-treated in those walls why the choice of cedar well pressure-treated were always worried about its twisting or bucking in this and so the Western cedar we found it's more dimensionally stable and it's so dry here that were not concerned about moisture rotting anything out so we're in high desert we're not in a particularly rainy climate as we were flying out here Branson was telling me they got about 10 inches of annual rainfall and at least half of that comes and maybe one or two doses man this is gonna be a beautiful bathroom you've got your Gaborik Gabourey I thinks how they pronounced that in wall toilet right there if you've never seen one of those that's a carriage recessed into the wall so then the toilet floats and then those carriage bolts right there is where the toilet will bolt in and then this is the tank that gets recessed into the wall and these carriages right here will actually hold the toilet in place cool part about those is you can raise them up and down depending on how high you want to go for your for your tall clients they can have a taller toilet and then you've got spray foam in the roof but other than that no insulation in the wall is just that two-foot thick rammed earth which is going to help moderate those temperatures when you've got a cold nighttime desert in a hot daytime that's going to moderate it and these are pretty buildings guys okay so let's stop here check this out now we can see a sill in a window show me what's going on here Branson we have to kind of build this from a void perspective and so all of these campers that are put in have to be made so that once we strip the forms we can break it down from the inside out so all these collapse in what you're seeing up here is the structural steel lintel that's a plate above that are some angle irons that provide the structure because above this we've got four feet of Earth which how many tons we think is on top of this many many times so it's got a substantial lintel which is what you see here you can also bury that but the architects wanted to express this part of the pattern language here is that you've got steel you've got earth we've got a little bit of wood and this is slope it looks like right Branson that's right so your windows sitting kind of on the flat side your sloped out and then you can see that Western redcedar that you're gonna screw into and have some meat to screw into and then what's inside this building here that's that radiant tubing isn't that's right we have yet to pour this floor this is going to be a concrete floor and so this has radiant heating this is cool to see this looks like a North East job that I've seen before where he's got the radiant tubing on here this is gonna have the hot water going through it he's got a couple layers of or at least one inch or pardon me two inches of EPS foam so that that slab isn't going to stay warm and radiates up and then it looks like maybe a fireplace over here is that what we're looking at so that's gonna be glass with a little bit of steel siding fireplace over here that's a low window and all glass on this side to kind of capture some of those views and that's cool down these lentils are neat look at that big old steel lintel right above us on this doorway here that's cool let's get those lentils have to be pretty strong because this earth two-foot thick has got to be heavy have you guys done any math on how much you've used on on this project in terms of weight of material three and a half million dang all right now this is cool over here if I understand that this is the last building that they have yet to complete on the rammed earth walls what is this formwork holy cow this is beefy walk me through what you got going on here Kyle we've got nine and a nine and a half inch lvl whalers we've got lvl strong backs running up the side it's 3/4 inch HDO plywood that we're using it's all kicker doff so that we're holding it up as we want as straight and flat walls as we can possibly get and the lvl the ovals were really helping and how tall is this wall gonna be when it's awesome that this one's 15 feet to the top so I'm some back screws over here what's going on with the how do you screw this in are you worried about screws telegraphing to the front of the cake mold we are yeah so we're using 2x2 nailers and all of the lvls are then screwed to the nailer which is then back screw to the plywood so we have no into those screws on the inside of it you're seeing what you're seeing here is a doorway so there's actually a void box that's inside here for the entrance to this building and you tell me earlier that when you're actually screwing those in you're doing something to mask the screw head from the final product is that right what are you doing did you catch that y'all there Bond doing so if they've got a face screw in here on the inside of this form they're gonna bond to it to make sure it doesn't share that's really cool that is some attention to detail and it shows I mean look at these buildings they're just absolutely beautiful you've got chamfered corners you've got a am i seeing like an expansion joint or something right here what is that okay control joint but these walls are like perfection there's no honeycombing there's no gosh I don't know what I don't know what else yeah we call it but there's no damage I guess yeah we've learned some tricks so one of the things we do is you make sure that whenever we start tamping that it's consistent all the way across so you can see these bands whatever we start laying a lift in we go all the way around there are concrete hidden concrete bond beams on the tops of these walls so we want to pour those whenever the earth is damp as well gotcha and so there's a lot of tricks that we've kind of learned that really ensure this level of product man that's beautiful now this is not your first rodeo there I Branson how many of these have you done before this is our third project this is our first one in West Texas but yeah we've got we've got a great project manager and then our crew in a blur really has cut their teeth on its own you know how to do this now it's pretty cool how about we climb the ladder and let's go take a look at the top of the forms great before it gets loud up here talk to me about the process how's the tape get into the forms voice we're using a sky track with a 1-yard bucket on it right now to get it up this high and then we found that when you dump the dirt in with a machine you can get patterning so we've shoveled all three million pounds oh wow so the Hat so then you've got a what do we say earlier a nine inch lift or so yeah how are you getting a consistent 9 inches knowing that you're going to tam down to six we have elevation marks on the inside of our formwork so we're tracking based off of all Wow and then is this a tamper that I'm seeing right here yeah that's Nikki he's got the tamper expands so how's the tamper work walk me through that it's pneumatic so we've got a air compressor down here pull the trigger and it starts bouncing around okay and then do you do you test each layer or do you know if it's gone from nine down to six that you've got the proper compression you're looking for we know if we put in the right amount of dirt we can compacted because you're going to foot-thick - we're not as worried about you know maybe it didn't quite get down to six it's at six and a quarter or what's in a half I want variation that's kind of the beauty of it you you want a little bit of the of the variations in the lifts it kind of gives it the look yeah that makes sense now I'm seeing rebar up here do most of your jobs have rebar that you're doing ransom no this one this at part of the wall this is narrower than two feet here because there is a roof structure and this is going to be a roof deck here so this is a parapet wall there's going to be a concrete top cap and there's also a bench that's Ledyard in so the engineer put in some extra vertical support just in this section of the wall below this section of the wall the rebar doesn't go all the way down okay so the shorter buildings in the distance then no rebar in those buildings right correct yeah just the two foot of thick yeah but they do have a perimeter bond beam at the top that we encased on the inside of that top that top couple layers of rammed earth yeah all right let's watch the guys get the layer going shall we [Music] [Music] guys what a beautiful project amazing amount of labor that goes into this I would just I would say a labor of love almost now one question I have though when I finish as I have seen your site today is how is this roof is the roof actually is with the rafters individually bearing on the rammed earth or is there something else there at the top that is bearing on there now there's a concrete bond beam though it's that runs all along the perimeter of the building it's eight inches by 12 inches okay so we're seeing like a parapet wall or almost like a rabbeted edge at the top right where your 2 foot wall stops and then a 1 foot wall maybe continues up or so and then there's a 12 inch bond beam there probably with Jay bolts or something up to you to put that roof down from wind load although there's no overhangs it probably was not a lot of wind load here no that's right that's pretty cool guys any final thoughts as you think about this project even you've been on site for this project for for how long Kyle a little over a year now I've got about a year your plus left so that right yeah it's been going really well I mean it's been on it's kind of like working on in our piece the clients are amazing architects are top-notch my crew is absolutely fantastic every single one of them that's pretty cool I'm good and Branson as the chief of this building company this is not your first rodeo you've done three of these now right that's right any thoughts for people who are maybe interested in doing rammed earth now you've done a couple of them or or maybe also tell us how long you expect this building to be around for sure well what Kyle said is true he you need the right design team neither I clients I really understand what this means is this is not inexpensive it takes it takes time and it takes a level of craft that is hard to find and so if you get you if everybody signed up for that then it's great because these are five hundred year walls yeah these things aren't going anywhere yeah for sure so you have technology on you can't be plug-and-play like masonry or CMU or anything like that got really commit to to this process because it is a process that's taking us a better part of a year to get walls in place on this so that doesn't happen you know compared to conventional framing that is a glacial rate yeah and and I was really impressed that the guys that are here really did everything I mean you had somebody else pour the stem walls right but everything else from there and off the formwork the lack of its have better turn pouring of the of the earth ramming the mixing all that stuff's done by your guys that have been here at the site right Branson that's right our enabler crew is finished carpenters that can then back off and do rough framing it so you see that in the form works where there's that scale of rough framing but the attention to detail is really high craft and that picks up in the final product of the forms yeah and you know the other thing that I haven't thought about you know when you strip concrete formwork it's usually a pretty rough dirty job there's a hammer you're slapping the forms right but if this is 1800 psi or maybe less you've probably got to be a little more delicate don't you that's right you've got to unwrap this just like a present right and so you take it off piece by piece and this is our finished wall you know with concrete you can patch it with stone you can replace it this is it this is the finished thing so you've got to be very careful so the level of attention from start to finish has to be high yeah and that's inside now too right I mean we're in the inside of this what what is this building right here this is the bar library ok so inside the bar library this is your finished wall that was the form that guys were working on that's right and outside of that same thing the windowsills everything in here is finished with the exception of a ceiling that's going to be covered to cover these eye joists in the insulation on the going but other than that everything's finished work that's that that really speaks to your level of attention as the Builder and for your career too and if you don't know these guys you should follow them on Instagram very unique company they've got 20-some craftsmen that work on all kinds of different phases of the project as well as three or four project managers like Kyle that are managing all projects so to be able to pull off the level of precision and detail that like Flatow the architects did in this project you need a builder like Branson and his team to do that any final thoughts on the project as you grab the video guess no we appreciate you taking a look at this and I think you see what I see the beauty of Graham Garth is just the same inside and out you're not covered anything up on this beautiful job guys very impressive just from a pure craftsmanship standpoint super fun project to come visit but honestly I've never seen anything like this before and to see it in process and see some of the last bone work going on on the last building it was great timing thanks to my brother-in-law for flying us out here at a safe flight getting out here thanks for calling his crew we're gonna go get some lunch and treat these guys to lunch and that we're hopping on a plane back to awesome but kylus is stuck here for a while guys follow Branson in his career on Instagram I'll put a link in the description below if you're interested in a project like this also contact the architects Lake Floyd who does some amazing work my company actually has a build with them coming up in the fall so you'll be following the progress of that but if you're not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below we've got new content every Tuesday and every Friday false and Twitter Instagram all the walls we'll see you next time on the build show everyone and we did you do life is easy job [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 1,766,716

Keywords: rammed earth, dirt house, marfa texas, lake flato, architecture, what is rammed earth, rammed earth matt risinger, the build show, buildshow network

Id: hLu2gxsVBe0

Length: 24min 12sec (1452 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2019