POUNDING MY OWN TIRE

It took me a while to find the courage (and mainly the strength) to pound my own tire from start to finish so I am very excited about this post...

The main building method for bearing and retaining walls, practiced in LWH, is earth rammed tires - as developed by Earthship.

This building method is highly recommended for earthquake regions, since the tire construction acts actually as shock absorber and earth movement will have minimal affect on the higher levels of the wall. The connecting upper beam of the wall will then keep the whole construction solid.

There are few differences between retaining walls to bearing walls but the main principles are quite similar:

1. First you dig

In order to have strong foundations the first level of tires needs to be dug into the earth. It is important that the earth will be leveled and will not contain any organic surfaces (trees or roots for example).

2. Choosing the right tires

Choosing tires with similar height and size will make life easier while trying to level the wall later on.

3. Its all about leveling

First we level the tires to one another (up to two fingers difference in height) then we level the current row of tires to the previous one. In retaining walls we will want to "step back" about 5 cm towards the earth.

4. Sealing the bottoms

Using nylon, cardboard or any other recycled material we can find, to close the bottom hole of the tire. For retaining walls, only the front floating half of the hole needs to be sealed, since the back part is laying on ground.

5. Filling with earth

Its better to fill a few tires in a row in order to prevent the pounded tire from shifting. Its also possible to stuff some trash into the tires, as efficient trash disposal .

6. Pounding

This is the fun (but hard) part!! Pounding towards the edges to compact the earth into the tire. Adding earth and pounding some more until the tire is packed (if you step on the tire and it is rock hard - its packed).

7. Leveling again

Leveling the tires height - some will need to be packed some more or less in order to fit the level.

8. For retaining walls - some more compacting

Add earth, if needed, at the back side of the wall and compact it too.

9. Edges

There are different methods for the walls edges, but I will elaborate it in another post.

10. Congratulate ourselves, we are done!!!

#sustainable #buildingmethods #architecture #volunteering