Block Making Begins

The earth block press making 7" x 14" x 4" blocks.


This machine blends the site soil with 6% Portland cement and adds a small amount of moisture as the mix passes along the outfeed auger.



Pallets of 10" x 14" x 4" earth blocks. The blocks are wrapped to retain moisture while the Portland cement cures. The blocks will be ready for use after about 2 weeks. We will wait a month before using ours.


We had originally planned on using sun dried adobe bricks from New Mexico for the wall structure of our house but the possibility of using the soil excavated from the site to make blocks was an intriguing option. Jim Hallock and Rich Gillespie of Earth Blocks Inc. http://www.earthblockinc.com/overview.htm made some test blocks from the site soil and determined that it would make great blocks. They set up their block press and started cranking out blocks on June 19th. Earth blocks are made by blending about 6% Portland cement with the soil and a little moisture which is then compressed in a form with a hydraulic ram. The press is capable of making over 250 10" x 14" x 4" blocks per hour. After about a week of block making, we have close to 8,000 blocks on site which is a little over half of what we will need for our walls.

French Drains, Waterproofing, Insulating, and Drain System

Forrest and Trevor digging in french drains along the front of the house.


Forrest installed the 2" foamboard along the shallow frost protected foundations and they are ready for backfilling.


The MiraDri and MiraDrain material attached to the retaining wall and the french drain at the base of the footer. This area is ready for backfill.




Kevin Jenkins spent half a day with a small tracked excavator digging shallow trenches for the DWV (sewer drain system). I had placed sleeves under the footers where needed at the correct depth to create a constant 1/4" slope to the network of pipes. Drain pipe was laced through the sleeves and glued together. Vertical pipes were placed in the correct locations where toilets, sinks, tubs, showers, washer and vents go. The location of these vertical pipes will be checked several times before the concrete slab is poured to make sure they are correct.

Our son Forrest Crawford, flew on from San Francisco while on break from school to help for a week. With Trevor Green providing assistance they installed French drains along the entire front of the house. Forrest then cut 2" foam board to attach to the shallow frost protected foundations. Another piece of foam 2' wide was cut and put flat on the ground at the base of the foundation and at a slight angle to shed any water away that might find its way down to this depth. This sheet of foam was just above the french drain. Once this work was completed, we back filled the exterior of the foundation.

Work on waterproofing the retaining walls began once the concrete had cured for seven days. Werner Heiber helped me apply a very sticky waterproofing membrane from Carlisle called "MiraDri". It forms a bulletproof seal to keep water from penetrating through the concrete but is miserable stuff to apply in hot weather. Once the 3' wide sheets become warm they stick to themselves, us, or anything else they come in contact with. We worked early in the day and stored the cut sheets in the shade until we were ready to attach them pulling one out at a time.

Werner headed off on vacation (well earned) and Ed Oaks came on board to help attach another Carlisle product called "MiraDrain" over the "MiraDri". This product is a dimpled plastic board covered with a drain fabric which forms a space across the entire retaining wall surface for moisture to flow down to the french drains dug in at the base of the footers. This stuff was pretty easy to install. Ed and Trevor then worked on french drains along the base of the back retaining walls.

We are now ready for backfilling the tall retaining walls. The land profile around the building will be contoured and we will start to see how the house nestles into the slope.

Retaining walls go up

One side of the form is mounted on top of the footers, rebar is installed and another panel is added at the correct width for the wall being created.


Joe Hernanedez aligns the pumper truck nozzle and monitors the fill while the truck operator controls the boom with a remote control. The crew follows finishing the surface of the concrete and adding J bolts where needed.


The finished foundation ready for the next step.

As soon as the forms for the footers were removed, the concrete crew started setting up retaining wall forms. The house design called for a 6' retaining wall to run the entire length of the house with stepped down wings off each end. In addition the guest bedrooms on the upper level of the site required a 4' retaining wall at the back side where this section of the house is bermed into the slope.

More plumbing, electrical conduit, and sleeves were installed at this stage before the forms were fully assembled. The pour occurred on Monday afternoon June 16th without incident and forms were removed the following day. By Wednesday, the concrete crew was gone along with all their equipment. I had to wait a week for the concrete to cure before getting a small tracked excavator into the structure to dig sewer drain pipe trenches.

Cast in Concrete

The pumper truck and the first concrete truck in position for filling the forms.



Joe on the left watching the action. The pumper truck operator is on the right with a remote control unit for his rig.



The quality inspector doing an air content test on a batch of concrete.



This truck is full of rejected concrete and ready to tip as you can see. A strap was attached between the top of the hopper and another truck and was kept taught while the driver of this truck inched forward back onto the drive.


The concrete pumper truck showed up at 8:00 am and began setting up while Jenny and I placed the last of the media conduit sweeps in the forms. The pour started at 9:00 and Joe's crew was wrapping up by 3:00 pm. One concrete truck leaving with a load of rejected concrete drove off of the compacted drive and sunk into the soft soil and was close to rolling. With help from another truck they were able to get him back on the drive without mishap.





We will see if our conduit survived the pour tomorrow when Joe's crew pull the forms.

Plumbing goes in the forms

This is a mix of roof drain, electrical conduit and sleeves for the radiant lines in an adobe wall between the great room and the master bedroom. We put couplings on the end of the conduit against the form wall and then wrapped them with foam to create a void in the concrete around them. We pulled the coupling up tight against the form with tie wire slipped through the form and twisted until tight.The radiant sleeves were just taped at their ends and suspended by tie wire and pulled to the bottom rebar with tie wire.


Here is a typical array of media and electrical conduit.


Jenny and I worked nonstop Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get all the plumbing required in the forms. Dave Himes with Southwest Geothermal was on site taking care of all the sleeves through forms between rooms. We worked on the electrical conduit that will allow us to pull wires up in the gap between the double adobe walls. Curt Nelsen with Nelsen Electric stopped by several times to cheer us on and to look over our shoulder and keep us code compliant. In addition, we had to install conduit for the media wiring, Photovoltaic, and roof drains. We worked until dark and started again at daybreak. We were just completing the last tasks on our punch list when the pumper truck showed up Monday morning.