I want to build a Hyperadobe home. I have seen many YouTube videos about the process, but I want to know way more than a few videos can teach me.
Does anyone have any book suggestions? I searched eBay and Amazon and found almost nothing.
So I had somebody interested in it ask me to look into it a while back. The people who recommended it, "Tiny Shiny Home", were doing a web docuseries about building an "earthship" style home with dirt from the ground. When I looked through the site selling the product, Volm, and the people "recommending" it I noticed that the images on both sites matched 1:1 meaning they were the same people. They, Tiny Shiny Home, also wanted to charge people on their website for more technical construction details that they never share publicly, the videos on their youtube channel were more or less blogs talking about the time between working on the project.
While I'm not necessarily opposed to entrepreneurship and wanting to make a hobby proffitable, the hyperadobe bags are gimmicky and much more expensive than other Polypropylene Bags which don't come in long tube form which actually makes a lot more sense to me personally.
So I think the Hyperadobe people are dishonest folk who target specific demographics with buzzwords and gimmicks.
The Hyperadobe bags are UV coated, so you have WAY longer to build your house. The other sand bags fall apart in less than 1 year in the hot desert sun. Lots of people I talk with really regret using the little sand bags.
I did watch a lot of tiny shiny home, but they do leave out a lot and their videos are just too long and too many to keep up. They also have workshops in person but they charge so much to go there.
https://www.earthbagbuilding.com/articles/hyperadobe.htm
It appears to be a straightforward, designed for trial and error.
Your biggest issues will most likely be with local ordinances.
Thank you for the link. I can see he used a concrete foundation for his home. That is way out of budget for me. I have seen some people use the bags as the foundation but filled with gravel for the first few layers. But I’m not sure how they drain any moisture away if it gets wet.
I live in a place where I can get it permitted. Not worried about that. I just want to see several ways people build these and try to make it the way I feel is a fit for my area.
For the gravel foundation layers, you'll definitely want to add a french drain system around the perimeter - just a trench filled with gravel and perforated pipe that directs water away from the structure (I built something simlar last year and it works amazingly well).
Most of my neighbors I talked to only have gravel, they skipped the drain pipe. I would think it’s better to add something like this. Thank you for your advice!
Not sure about your budget, but concrete is cheaper by bulk. You can cheat on your concrete fill by using rocks. If you live in an area with cuts through hills, you may be able to source large rocks from there and dump the concrete in the gaps around it.
This land has plenty of rocks, I have been using them for everything. Thank you for your ideas
Permaculture theory and practice