Modern adobe house. Private eco house from adobe: unusual and relevant

Saman, as a building material, has been used throughout the history of the development of civilization, from the creation of the first adobe settlements to the present day. And although in the era of the rapid development of the construction industry it was not very popular, nowadays there are more and more people who want to build a house for themselves from environmentally friendly, natural material - adobe.

What is adobe made from?

Adobe is prepared from components that can be found in abundance in any region - clay and straw. Among the Turkic peoples, the word "saman" just means "straw". In our country, this word is associated with building material, from which you can make clay blocks, suitable for the construction of housing. In addition to straw, other organic and inorganic additives can be added to clay to increase strength, plasticity and improve other qualities.

Environmental friendliness and safety

Houses made of adobe in Russia are not very widespread, except for the steppe regions, where there is a constant shortage of wood and other alternative building materials, as well as the influence of neighboring peoples, who have rich experience in the construction of adobe houses. But the very idea of building an environmentally friendly home, in the wake of the struggle for natural purity, is captivating and inspiring. Especially young people. In addition, the construction adobe house does not require huge capital investments, because clay and water are abundant in any region and building materials can be located on the site right under your feet. But before you start building a house from, you need to familiarize yourself with some of the features of preparing the material and the difficulties that you may encounter.

Adobe

For centuries, the recipe for adobe remained unchanged and consisted of clay, sand, straw, dung (dung) and water. Nowadays, cement, lime, expanded clay, shavings, water glass and other organic and inorganic components are added to the main composition.

Some are confused and surprised by the presence of cattle manure in adobe, however, this component was prompted by life itself. Even in the old days, animals were used to knead a large amount of clay. Oxen, horses or donkeys walked sadly in a circle, kneading clay with water, straw and products of their vital activity. Such a mud mixer. As it turned out, the excrement of the cattle improved the quality of adobe, made it stronger and more plastic, and the dried blocks did not contain any foreign smell. But to whom the very fact of the content of dung in the recipe is unpleasant, you can not get hung up on this. One straw is enough to significantly increase the fracture and break strength of clay blocks. In addition, there are other organic additives that improve the quality of the mixture.

Nowadays, adobe is kneaded with concrete mixers, but you can do this, like our ancestors, with bare feet the whole family stomp on the clay, adding water and adding straw. It's even fun, especially for kids. When the clay is well mixed and brought to a pasty state, it must be allowed to stand for a day, and then it can be used for its intended purpose.

The raw clay mass is filled in standard forms for blocks or formwork, carefully tamped and left to dry in the open air. Blocks must be standard sizes: 39x19x9 cm; 39x19x19 cm; 33x19x19 cm.

For the preparation of adobe, it is recommended to select medium-fat clay. To determine this, you may need the help of an expert in adobe construction, but correctly selected clay is a guarantee of the quality of adobe blocks. Dried adobe is not inferior in strength to low-grade fired bricks.

Adobe recipe

There is no one set and standard recipe for adobe. The ratio of the amount of clay and fillers is determined experimentally, depending on the characteristics of the material. Heavy adobe, which contains less straw, has a density of about 1500-1600 kg / m 3 and a compressive strength of 10-15 kg / cm 2. The thermal conductivity coefficient of such adobe is approximately 0.3 W / mxC 0.

In light adobe, there is more straw, its density is 500 kg / m 3, and the thermal conductivity is 0.05-0.1 W / mxC o. The thermal conductivity of adobe is half that of ceramic bricks, which provides reliable protection shelter from winter frosts and summer heat.

Subtleties of the structure

Height clay walls should be 30-40 cm higher than the design one, since they shrink over time. The excessive content of organic fillers in adobe attracts various insects and rodents that can make holes in the walls. To protect against such uninvited "guests", the plaster on the lower part of the wall (about 1.5 m) must be applied to a fine metal mesh. You can apply and chemical agents protection, but it is better to do it as a last resort. The exterior decoration of the house can be started not earlier than the next season, when the house is completely dry and shrinks.

Home construction

The construction of an adobe house is a troublesome and lengthy business. It will not be possible to complete the entire volume of work in one season, and the whole point is in technology. After all, the wall of the house can be built up no higher than 30 cm per day, lifting the formwork every day and preparing the adobe the next day. Using this method, it takes half a month or more to build a house box, provided that there will be warm weather without precipitation, and strip foundation made in advance. The method of forming the walls in the formwork significantly reduces the construction time of the box, since there is no need to produce a large number of blocks. The finished walls must be immediately covered with a roof, the overhangs of which must be at least 60 cm so that the rains do not erode the clay. This can end the construction season, since the house must be allowed to dry completely, settle down, shrink so that work can be continued the next season. It is undesirable to use heat fans, heat guns, air heaters to speed up the drying of walls. The adobe should dry naturally and slowly. After a year, you can install carpentry, lay floors, plaster, lay communications and perform other engineering and finishing work.

Features of building a house from ready-made clay blocks

Building a house from ready-made clay blocks has its own characteristics. The whole season will have to be spent on manufacturing the required amount bricks or blocks, give them time to dry and gain sufficient strength. Laying the walls from ready-made blocks is easier and faster and they do not require long drying and shrinkage.

The technique of building an adobe house with the help of formwork makes it possible to erect only one-story buildings. Method brickwork you can build houses with two or more floors. It is a long-standing practice that has stood the test of time and is widely used today. Uniform rules and normative documents on construction from no, as there are no reference books and scientific research, prescribing the number of floors and methods of adobe construction. V different regions there are local peculiarities of the construction of such housing, depending on the availability of raw materials for adobe, well-established local building traditions, seismic activity and weather conditions in the region.

Two main types of adobe are used for housing construction - heavy (40–80% clay) and light (10–40% clay). The rest of the mass is made up of straw or various organic additives.

Heavy adobe. Typically, this clay mixture is used to build walls in formwork. Formwork is made of sheet metal or wooden panels upholstered with roofing iron. Raw clay does not dry out to the metal, does not come off when rearranged. The formwork installed on the foundation is filled with adobe, and a layer of 30 cm thick is carefully tamped. the desired height... The box of the house turns out to be monolithic and capable of withstanding a considerable load. Openings for windows and doors are formed in the outer walls and inner partitions. When constructing a house using the formwork method, it is very difficult to maintain the dimensions of the walls vertically and horizontally, besides large shrinkage may increase inaccuracies.

The laying of walls from adobe blocks is underway the traditional way, except that, instead of cement mortar, use clay paste, half-and-half with sand with the addition of straw for better communication... To ensure a snug fit, the seam should be about 1 cm. No more than two rows can be laid per day, this is 40 cm in height.

Have this method construction has a significant drawback. It is necessary to make a large number of blocks in advance and store them for a long time in a dry ventilated room or under a shed.

Light adobe. The structure of the structure of light adobe consists of wooden posts, sheathed on both sides with a board or OSB. Prepared clay, with a high content of straw, is placed in the space between the outer and inner lining racks and tamped.

Such a structure looks more like a frame or panel house, and not adobe. Its construction will require a large amount of wood and fasteners. In addition, the architectural attractiveness and originality of adobe architecture are lost, because light adobe in this design plays the role of a filler or insulation.

Elements of an adobe house

It is recommended to build a box of an adobe house on a strip foundation made of concrete or stone. To protect the clay from splashing water and serve as a base for thick exterior decoration, it should rise above the ground level by at least 20 cm. Its width should be 10-20 cm more than the wall thickness. It is also necessary to provide reliable waterproofing foundation, because adobe is quite hygroscopic and quickly absorbs moisture.

Walls

The thickness of the load-bearing wall made of heavy adobe is 50-60 cm, and the internal partition is 30 cm.To give the box of the house additional strength, it is reinforced with non-rotting plants in height every 50 cm. places where jumpers are installed. Dry stalks of reeds, reeds, hemp, etc. are used as reinforcement. The thickness of a wall made of light adobe is no more than 25-30 cm.

Ceiling coverings

Wooden beams are used as the ceiling, the ends of which must lie on the walls at least 15 cm on each side. In places where the beams are in contact with the wall, they are wrapped with waterproofing material and walled up. The walls on which the beams rest are recommended to be reinforced with stainless mesh or reed.

Used as lintels over openings wooden blocks 50 mm thick. They must also be insulated where they touch the clay.

Windows and doors

Wooden frames of windows and doors must be covered with waterproofing.

The structure is covered with a hipped roof (gable, gable, etc.), rafter system... The angle of inclination of the rafters should be at least 30-45 0 to reduce the spacer load on the walls. In order to minimize the ingress of rainwater onto the walls, the overhangs of the roof are made at least 70 cm. In dry and hot regions, the roof is often made flat.

Facade finishing

To protect adobe walls from erosion, facade decoration must be produced without fail. The walls are plastered with lime, acrylic, silicate mortar or bricked. The brick must be laid, leaving air gap between the walls. In some cases, adobe houses are trimmed with wood. Use cement mortar for plastering clay walls, you can only use a grid.

Inside the house, the walls are usually plastered with a clay mortar, with the addition of dung in a ratio of 10: 1. But on the market today building materials there is a wide selection of environmentally friendly finishing mixes, so there is no need for exotic organics.

D Oma and buildings made of adobe can be found in any part of the world and not always in the rural outback: the "huts" of Ukraine, the pueblo of Mexico, the Duval of Central Asia, cozy houses old Europe, and the huts of Africa. Moreover, the largest structure on Earth, the Great Wall of China, is 2/3 built of adobe.

What kind of material is it, how it is made, how it is used and how to build a house from adobe with your own hands - let's figure it out in order.

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Adobe composition

To start with the composition, adobe is ordinary clay mixed with sand and other additives. The builders have another name for it - clay concrete. Clay in adobe is like cement in ordinary concrete, it brings together all the components included in the material.

In addition to clay and sand, adobe contains:

Lightweight fillers that increase the heat-shielding properties of the material, reduce specific gravity, increase tensile strength, reduce shrinkage, preventing cracking.

Fibrous materials, preferably straw, are suitable additives. In addition to or instead of straw, chopped reeds, shavings, dry needles, dried sea grass, etc. can be used.

Tip: Of all the lightweight fillers, rye straw is considered the best. It has long been noticed that rodents - mice and rats - do not settle in it and do not even make holes. Rye straw is avoided by insects.

Heavy mineral fillers increase compressive strength and reduce clay consumption.

To do this, you can use crushed stone or gravel, river pebbles, bricks. Also, for the construction of a house from adobe, expanded clay, blast-furnace slag, expanded perlite can be added as heavy mineral fillers, which additionally increase thermal resistance.

Additives and plasticizers. They reduce the amount of water required for mixing the composition, thereby reducing shrinkage when adobe dries. Increase material ductility and tensile strength.

Since ancient times, instead of complex chemistry for the preparation of adobe, ordinary manure has been used to build a house. Horse, cow or camel. It was sealed with water 1: 1, allowed to soften for a day, and then added to adobe.

Nowadays it is easier to use casein, PVA emulsion, potassium silicate ("liquid glass") as additives. The addition of whey gives a good effect.

In this article: the history of adobe housing construction; what components are included in adobe; differences between heavy and light adobe; positive and negative characteristics of adobe; how to choose raw materials and make an adobe block with your own hands; adobe bricks strength test; construction of houses from clay blocks - details; which explains the popularity of green building in the world.

Building a house is an expensive undertaking. Building materials alone for the construction of walls will cost a significant amount, and you still need to attract craftsmen for their laying and decoration. Yes, with all the costs for high-quality construction and finishing materials, you still need to make sure of their environmental characteristics - you must agree that today this criterion is important. Meanwhile, a full-fledged house can be built not only with your own hands, but also from a construction material created, again, independently and right on the construction site - no chemical components are required for the production of adobe bricks. Let's find out what adobe is, how to build a building out of it, and, finally, how comfortable it will be to live in such a house.

History of adobe houses

To shelter himself and his family from the bad weather, a person needed a home. Several millennia ago, people developed various technologies construction, primarily dependent on the availability of the simplest building materials - stone and wood. For many peoples who inhabited the Earth along the perimeter of the equator before our era, wood and stone were in great shortage, they had to look for other building materials. About 6000 years ago, a solution to the problem was found - from wet clay mixed with straw, bricks were created, dried in the sun, and buildings were erected from this simple structural material.

For the first time molded and sunburned bricks appeared in Ancient egypt- for their production, Egyptian builders extracted clay from the bottom of the Nile River. Subsequently, the technology of creating clay bricks was borrowed from the Egyptians by the peoples of Ancient Persia, from where it spread throughout Asia, and then, together with the Moorish armies, penetrated into Spain. By the way, it was the Arab builders who gave the clay brick the name at-tob, which was changed centuries later by the Spaniards to adobe - in Russia its Turkic name “adobe” is better known.

The oldest architectural complex in Asia, made entirely of adobe, until 2003 was the Persian Citadel of Bam, created around the 6th – 4th century BC. the Achaemenid dynasty. Unfortunately, at the end of 2003, the ancient Citadel was completely destroyed by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, the epicenter of which fell almost on the territory of the old city. I note that the Iranian city of Bam suffered from an earthquake not only in the historical part, but also in the modern part - about 80% of buildings were destroyed.

The construction of buildings made of mud (i.e. clay) developed independently among the peoples of the American continent. The Anasazi (Pueblo) Indians erected multi-storey complexes of clay and straw in the southern part of North America, however, they did not make bricks - the prepared building material in a wet state was laid along the perimeter of the future building, as it hardened, a new tier formed on top, and so on. ...

In the state of New Mexico (USA), buildings built from adobe about 1000 years ago still exist and are used for living.

Adobe composition

This clay building material can consist of a variety of natural components, most often in its composition: water, which acts as a solvent; clay of medium fat, the base of the mixture; filler, the role of which can be played by chopped straw or fibrous plant stems, manure; other additives.

The goals of introducing certain additives into the adobe mixture, their list:

ü cellulose fibers provide increased tensile strength. Chopped straw (cutting length - from 90 to 160 mm, depending on the size of the brick), chaff, fire, wood chips, cattle manure are used;

ü to reduce shrinkage when bricks dry out, sand, fine gravel, crushed stone or expanded clay are introduced;

ü lime and cement will help increase resistance to water and accelerate curing;

ü to improve plasticity, liquid glass, bone glue, casein, molasses, slurry (the characteristic smell of manure completely disappears after the adobe dries up), starch can be introduced into the composition.

The adobe mixture does not require the obligatory introduction of the chemical components used in building materials into it - the clay, which forms the basis of the mixture, already has most of the characteristics that are common for modern construction and finishing materials. Construction chemicals are added as needed - to speed up the hardening of bricks, to ensure maximum resistance to microorganisms, rodents and high temperatures arising from a fire.

Heavy and light adobe - what's the difference

Light adobe is very familiar to the population of the southern regions of Russia - the walls of the hut-houses are made of this material. A solution of light adobe contains a lower percentage of clay - about 10%, bricks are not created from it, because the mixture is applied directly to the frame walls along the reinforcing wooden lathing or laid between the inner and external cladding wall made of edged boards or OSB boards. Advantages of erecting buildings from light adobe - high speed construction works, a small range of building materials, the work can be performed by non-professional builders. Disadvantages - high expense wood materials, which increases the cost of construction.

Heavy adobe blocks and bricks make it possible to build significantly stronger and safe house than when building from light adobe. In the process of masonry work, pre-dried adobe bricks are used, therefore, it is not required to allocate a lot of time for drying the walls, and their finishing can be done immediately after construction. The disadvantages of heavy adobe, as well as the advantages, are associated with clay bricks - the process of their manufacture is quite laborious, until complete curing, the products must be stored in large volumes, carefully protecting them from getting wet.

Characteristics of adobe

The exact characteristics of adobe and products made from it depend on the composition of the mixture and the percentage of light fillers in it:

· heavy adobe has a density of the order of 1500–1800 kg / m 3, i.e. it practically coincides with the density building bricks;

· the thermal conductivity coefficient is half that of building bricks - about 0.1–0.4 W / m ° С. The more straw is contained in heavy adobe and the higher its density, the lower its thermal conductivity;

· compressive strength is about 10-50 kg / cm 2, this strength range is close to the characteristics of foam and aerated concrete.

Advantages of adobe construction:

· the cheapest construction material, since the raw materials for its production - clay and water - are found everywhere and in abundance;

· absolute environmental friendliness of adobe buildings;

· low heat transfer and high sound insulation of walls;

· fire resistance;

· the ability to absorb excess moisture in rooms.

Minuses:

· poor resistance to moisture, especially at low temperatures - external plastering or overlapping of walls with facing bricks is required;

· the impossibility of conducting construction work in winter conditions;

· Building erected in the temperate zone, a long dry strength and gaining;

· adobe walls create favorable conditions for the life of them rodents, insects and fungi.

The house is built of adobe longer than the house of traditional materials- more time is required to set the walls of the strength characteristics. However, the final cost estimates for the construction will be at least half the cost than the construction of similar area of a building brick.

Adobe bricks with their hands

First of all, you want to pick up the clay to be used in the adobe mixture, determining its fat content. This will require a sample of clay and two ostrogannoj board 100-150 mm. Stacked clay in a small container, refill it with water and carefully promeshivaya hands achieve a homogeneous dough clay - its consistency must be sufficiently steep that the clay did not stick to the fingers. Then, take out the test piece of clay, ride in the palms to form a 50 mm ball, ball put between the boards prepared with uniform force and slowly push the upper board. It is necessary to squeeze the ball clay until its surface cracks appear: ball diameter to cracking decreased by half (20-25 mm) - oily clay; crack with decreasing diameter by 1/3 (up to 13-17 mm) report the average fat content of the clay; if the ball is crumbled to pieces at the slightest pressing - Clay skinny, nothing on for adobe.

Clay lies near water, in addition to the location of its formations near the ground reported the following external features:

· slightly on the wetlands area - located underneath layers of clay does not allow water to soak into the ground;

· level of well water - if in the well water is especially high, there are deposited layers of clay;

· soil areas with abundant grows mint or sedge, although the visible sources of water are not near.

Finally, the most easy way find the necessary quality of the clay layers - go to the neighbors, who built some time ago, built of adobe or tiled stove (fireplace).

The easiest way to make adobe bricks is to use medium-fat clay. it is easier to work with it - it will take less effort to prepare. If only fatty clay is available, then you will need to change its composition to medium-fatty by introducing 15-16 kg of sand per 100 kg, with thorough mixing of the resulting mixture. Only clean sand of a coarse fraction (about 2 microns) is needed - mountain sand is better, river sand is worse, because it contains silt particles that reduce the degree of adhesion of sand grains to clay.

The preparation of clay for the adobe mixture must be done in the fall, then put it in a heap up to a meter high and close it on top with a dense, 100 mm layer of straw. A clay pile is formed and left under the open sky for the whole winter, due to which it will be soaked by rains and spring snowmelt, and will freeze low temperatures cold season - by the beginning of spring, its plasticity will increase, which is what we need. As soon as the thermometer is firmly established above the zero mark and there will be no more frost - remove the straw that covered the clay pile and cover the clay plastic wrap, pressing its edges with stones around the perimeter. Polyethylene flooring will allow the clay pile to thaw faster, while preventing dry crust from forming on its surface.

The straw for the adobe mixture requires either fresh, remaining after harvesting winter wheat and rye, or last year's dry, without traces of rot. In the absence of straw, rough-stemmed grass hay will do.

In order to have time to build the foundation, walls and roof of the house before the onset of cold weather, adobe bricks need to be produced in early to mid-spring, as soon as warm weather sets in. The site for creating bricks from adobe should be near the place of construction of the house - the finished bricks are weighty and rather large, it will be difficult to move them over considerable distances.

Before mixing the adobe mixture, prepare the platform and molds for the bricks. You should not mix the mixture on bare ground - debris and soil will definitely get into it, reducing the strength of the bricks. A molding platform is required - a dense flooring made of boards with a size of 2000 x 2000 mm or more, or a conical platform covered with a waterproof dense fabric. Clay is laid on it in a volume of no more than 2/3 of the flooring area, large clods are broken with a shovel, a depression is formed in the center of the heap, water is poured. Then the clay is stirred with shovels and crumpled with feet, in the case of its high fat content, sand is added, then pre-soaked straw is introduced, the mixture is again stirred and kneaded with feet until it becomes homogeneous in structure and looks like a thick porridge. The need for chopped straw (fire) is about 13-15 kg per cubic meter of clay, the exact amount is determined empirically... At this stage, the preparation stage of the adobe mixture is completed, it is collected with shovels in a heap and left for two days to "ripen".

It should be noted that it is necessary to knead the adobe mixture only with your feet, because any other methods do not work here - an attempt to knead the mixture with the help of a horse will be ineffective, since the animal will prefer to follow the tracks already made by its hooves, and the attraction of a caterpillar or wheeled tractor will be accompanied by the introduction of earth and mud into the adobe.

While the adobe mixture is gaining viscosity, we start creating molds for bricks. To do this, you need a planed board 30 mm thick, from which boxes without a bottom are knocked together, containing two, three or four cell-sections - their number depends on overall dimensions bricks. The adobe brick usually has three standard sizes: small - 300x140x100 mm; medium - 300x170x130 mm; large - 400x190x130 mm. The larger the adobe brick, the longer it will take to dry, therefore its dimensions are determined primarily by local climatic conditions. During hardening, molded adobe bricks lose moisture, their linear dimensions decrease by 10–20%, so the internal dimensions of the wooden shaped cells should be 50–60 mm larger than the desired size of the finished brick. To simplify the extraction of the "green" brick from the mold during the molding process, the cells can be slightly conical - the distance between the upper walls of the cells is 7–10 mm larger than between the lower ones. Each wooden form must be equipped with handles along the "narrow" ends - it is enough to nail bars with a section of 50 by 50 mm to them.

Before starting the production of adobe bricks in the volume required for construction, it is necessary to test several samples of bricks for strength. To carry it out, make up several adobe mixtures in a small volume (based on two bricks), keeping the following proportions in each next batch: 3 parts of clay to one part of sand; 2 parts clay and one part sand; the ratio of clay to sand, as 1 to 1; one part clay to 2 parts sand; one part clay to 3 parts sand. Make two bricks from each mixture, stand on a platform in the sun, then place under a covered canopy, placing them on the edge and keep them there for another week (do not confuse which bricks are from which mixture composition!).

After a week, before testing adobe products for strength, inspect their surfaces, try to pinch off a piece from the edges, break bricks with your hands:

· if the product crumbles easily under the fingers, there is not enough clay and too much straw in the mixture;

· if the surface of the adobe is covered with deep cracks, then the mixture is too rich in clay or the clay is too oily, i.e. there is not enough sand filler in it - increase the proportion of the sand content by one part;

· if you managed to break a brick with your hands - there is not enough straw in it, you need to increase its content in the mixture by 1.5 times.

After preliminary inspection, proceed to strength tests, using one of the two proposed options or both at once: 1st option - drop one brick from each batch from a height of more than 2 meters to the ground; Option 2 - Dampen 120mm nails with water and hammer them into the remaining bricks. Broken bricks after a fall means that the composition of adobe was chosen incorrectly for them, the same applies to cracked and crumbled samples when trying to drive nails into them. In high-quality adobe, a nail enters the same way as in dense wood (for example, in oak) and just as firmly adheres to it.

Having chosen the most successful proportion of the adobe mixture, we proceed to the production of bricks in large quantities. The operations of adding components, kneading, kneading and holding the batch are carried out according to the scheme described above - to create 1000 adobe bricks, about 10 m 3 of clay will be required. It is necessary to prepare a site for preliminary drying of products a day before molding - cut off tall grass and protrusions on the ground, remove debris with a rake in several passes, ensure the outflow of water in case of rain, cover its surface with a layer of straw.

The ready-made adobe is taken from the flooring with shovels and placed in the mold cells, previously moistened with water along the inner walls, sprinkled with a mixture of fine straw cut and sand - a measure that facilitates the extraction of raw bricks from the mold. The adobe is put into cells in excess, after which it is rammed with a shovel and a board, after tamping with the same board, excess material is cut off and returned back to the batch. Further wooden form rises, is transferred to the drying area, the form is carefully turned over, 4-5 through holes are made in the extracted bricks with a wire of 1–1.5 mm in diameter along the central axis of the products - they will relieve the stress in the material caused by drying. Products remain on site for 24–36 hours - they must dry and harden to be able to be moved under the shed. After a day or two, they must be turned on the edge, leaving in place for further drying.

From above, the molded bricks are covered with tarpaulin or roofing felt - the coating will protect them from rain and uneven drying in the sun. The adobe products at this stage should not come into contact with each other, it is necessary that the air freely penetrates to their walls. Then the bricks are transferred to the shed or under the shed, where they are stacked on top of each other in pairs on the edge (in the "well") with a distance between them equal to the thickness of the products - the room for storing adobe bricks must be well ventilated. Laying adobe on wooden pallets absorbing excess moisture. Full term drying of adobe bricks, depending on the weather, will be from 10 to 15 days - ready product has a uniform color throughout its thickness, does not break when dropped from a height of two meters, does not lose shape after being soaked in water for 48 hours.

The nuances of building houses from adobe

Exposure to the destructive effects of moisture imposes a number of conditions, which must be observed during the construction of an adobe house.

Foundation.For an adobe construction, a strip foundation is optimal, the width of which exceeds the width of the masonry walls by 200 mm - to protect the fences of the house from splashing water and to be able to apply a thick layer of plaster. Concrete, rubble stone and brick are used as the material for the foundation, the basement is brought out to a height of 500 mm and above. It is important to lay a waterproofing layer between the foundation and the walls - for example, several layers of roofing tar paper or roofing material.

Walls.Thickness outer walls from heavy adobe must be at least 500 mm, internal - at least 300 mm. The perimeters of the openings in the walls, above the lintels and in the sections of the walls conjugation (step 500 mm vertically), you need to lay reinforcement from reeds or brushwood. The masonry is carried out according to the technology usually used for the construction of walls from blocks, with seams about 10 mm thick. It is required to lay no more than two brick rows per day (no more than 400 mm high) so that the solution grasps and dries out overnight - following this technique will speed up the drying of the walls and somewhat reduce their shrinkage, allow you to start plastering the walls immediately after construction. Masonry mortar- adobe dough, in which the ratio of clay to sandy filler is one to one or four to three. If necessary, you can reduce the size of the adobe brick using a conventional hatchet. The erection of walls and roofing of the box of the house must be carried out only in dry weather, the work must be completed before the onset of autumn frosts.

Wall decoration.Adobe walls without external finishing will quickly deteriorate, so it is extremely necessary to complete it. The plaster layer should be 50–100 mm, which will reliably protect the walls from bad weather and protect them from the penetration of rodents and insects. Acrylic, lime and silicate compounds are suitable for plastering walls - the plaster layer should be waterproof, but permeable to steam. Cement plaster does not work, because practically does not adhere to unbaked clay. You can veneer the walls from the outside with a brick, board or other materials, while it is imperative to withstand between the adobe wall and the cladding air gap 50 mm, otherwise the adobe will get wet. Dressing between external cladding and an adobe wall is made with nails 150 mm long. Interior wall decoration is carried out gypsum plaster, can be tiled using gypsum-based adhesives.

Overlapping.Mounted by wooden beams installed on the walls by more than 150 mm. The beams must be treated with waterproofing impregnation (for example, two or three layers of drying oil) or wrapped with tar paper, then embedded in adobe walls. In order to effectively distribute the load under each floor beam, a board is laid, the areas at the support points of the beams are also reinforced with reeds or brushwood.

Jumpers. Window and door lintels are made of a board, the width of which is equal to the width of the wall, and the thickness is 50 mm. Jumper boards must be impregnated with waterproofing compounds or wrapped in tar paper.

Window and door frames. It is best if these frames are made of wood, which will reduce the risk of condensation accumulation. When installing boxes of windows and doors, a waterproofing layer is laid along the perimeter of the openings.

Roof. It is better to arrange a steep roof, at an angle of 35 or 40 ° - in this case, the expanding load on the walls will be lower. The minimum length of the overhang, capable of well protecting the walls from rain streams, is 700 mm. Lightweight materials are more suitable as roofing - metal tiles or sheet roofing. If an attic is arranged under the roof, then under roofing material it is necessary to install 50 mm rigid mineral wool... Insulation of the attic is performed with light adobe or other materials of natural origin.

Floor. Finished with ceramic tiles on a soil base previously insulated with expanded clay or light adobe.

At the end

The growing interest in the construction of houses from adobe or from straw, which has been established over the past decades in Europe and America, is explained not only by the fashion for ecological housing, but also by the constantly growing cost of buildings from modern materials... Why get into debt bondage to banks and developers, if you can save money and build a full-fledged house from natural materials, literally lying under your feet?

The almost complete absence of building standards for such buildings is not connected at all with their low operational characteristics, but rather with the reluctance to develop these standards, with the traditions of erecting buildings of stone, brick and reinforced concrete, common for the XX-XIX centuries.

Abdyuzhanov Rustam, rmnt.ru

http://www.rmnt.ru/ - site RMNT.ru

A country house is the dream of every resident of a large metropolis, who is tired of the daily hustle and bustle and worries. Unfortunately, the construction of even a small house entails a lot of financial costs. It is necessary to buy a plot, take care of carrying out all the necessary communications, calculate the materials, and if you do not have experience in construction with your own hands, you will also have to pay for the work of a team of workers. You can save on building a house using the ancient technology of building houses from adobe bricks.

What is adobe?

Clay is used as the main material for adobe. To create a solution of the required consistency, water is used, and a straw chop acts as a filler. In some cases, crushed stone, casein, expanded clay or other substances are added to the mixture that change the properties of the finished building material. This is not to say that the production of adobe bricks is a simple task, however, using this material to build a house is much more affordable and easier.

Advantages and disadvantages of adobe houses

The advantages of an adobe house include:

Practical zero costs for basic materials for construction.
High thermal conductivity and low sound permeability in adobe houses.
Environmentally friendly safe houses with a long service life.

Cons of an adobe house:

Need quality finishes adobe walls as they quickly absorb moisture.
Construction is impossible in winter period time, while it is longer due to the slow drying of adobe.
Home walls can be a breeding ground for rodents

Adobe houses are a newly revived technology of the past, and at the same time they have many advantages. Now you can build your own eco-friendly home with minimal costs.

The desire to own their own home often drives the modern city dweller into numerous debts, loans and mortgages. But few people think that it is quite possible to build your own house with your own hands, without spending fabulous sums on it. And in this case we are talking exclusively about the good old technology of construction from natural material - adobe. How to build an adobe house with your own hands and get your own home for personal use within a year or two, in our material below.

Important: the first adobe buildings were built thousands of years ago, and this directly speaks of the strength and reliability of adobe as a building material. That is why an adobe house is a confident competitor to any building erected from modern building materials using the latest building technologies... And here it is noteworthy that building a house from adobe does not require special education. It is possible to mount buildings from such material like modeling from plasticine, and any mistakes and mistakes on the construction site can be corrected here on the spot.

Saman and everything about him

Saman is a natural mixture of clay and fillers in the form of fibrous inclusions of straw, flax, lime or cattle manure. As binder water comes out, with the help of which the mixture is brought to the desired consistency. At the same time, fibrous additives (straw and flax fiber) are cut into pieces up to 16 cm in length. Also, sand can be added to the adobe mixture to reduce the fat content of the clay. Since clay that is too oily can burst when it dries, and this will lead to the destruction of the wall over time or a decrease in its heat capacity. Also, depending on the requirements for the finished adobe house, the following impurities can be added to the mixture:

Fire retardants - enhance the fire resistance of the building;
Antiseptics - prevent the negative effects of moisture on finished walls at home;
Earth, sand and lime increase the fire safety of the blocks;
The soil in the mixture will help to increase the compressive strength of the finished adobe blocks;
Tensile strength is enhanced by all plant fibers plus dung;
And to reduce the percentage of shrinkage finished house will allow gravel and sand in the adobe mixture;
Lime strengthens the structure and makes it more moisture resistant;
Liquid glass, bone glue or milk serum will make the adobe mixture more plastic, which will make it easier to work with;
Expanded clay and sawdust - increase the heat capacity of the finished adobe bricks.

Important: but adobe itself answers all operational characteristics, such as heat capacity, environmental friendliness, strength and moisture resistance.

Advantages and disadvantages of adobe

Note that a house built of adobe is not inferior in terms of technical specifications many modern wooden cottages or stone buildings. So, for an adobe house, the following advantages are inherent:

High environmental friendliness at home. The use of exclusively natural materials for the preparation of the mixture in tandem with sunlight provides the finished home with only natural characteristics.
Efficiency of construction. Indeed, for the installation of an adobe house, there is no need to purchase expensive building materials. All components for the preparation of adobe blocks are literally under the feet of the master. In addition, the use of exclusively natural materials does not require knowledge of complex construction technologies. This means that by hiring specialists in a particular field, you can also save money and do all the work yourself.
Ample opportunities in the embodiment of architectural ideas. In the literal sense of the word, a clay house can be sculpted at your discretion. Curved semicircular walls will be appropriate here, graceful arches, bay windows, etc.
Among other things, the adobe house has an increased heat capacity and sound insulation. This means that in such a building it will always be warm, quiet and comfortable, regardless of the season and the noise level on the street.
In addition, we note that an adobe house can last for about 100 years or more.

But adobe also has some disadvantages, which are predetermined by the origin of the mixture:

So, the house will have a low resistance to moisture. And therefore, you will have to additionally protect it from the effects of water outside.
Rodents may like the ready-made homemade adobe mixture.
A house made of adobe blocks undergoes a long shrinkage, and therefore it is necessary to make at the construction stage a higher ceiling height than is laid down in the project. Otherwise, after shrinkage, the house will not be entirely comfortable.
Well, the construction time will be delayed, since it is possible to build from adobe only in dry warm weather.

Important: the construction of an adobe house is categorically contraindicated in areas with high humidity or in highly shaded areas. And where the soil is not clayey, it is simply not economically feasible to build an adobe house.

The nuances of working with adobe

Before starting the installation of an adobe house, you should understand how to build a house from adobe in such a way that the finished building will last as long as possible. There are a number of specific recommendations that have been formed over hundreds of years of using such technology.

Important: it is noteworthy that there are simply no GOSTs for adobe construction. Here the master uses only the existing history of construction and the experience of the ancestors.

It is better to make the foundation for an adobe house with a shallow strip with obligatory reinforcement when pouring. The width of the base must exceed the width of the adobe block by 20 cm. At the same time, having made the base, it must be waterproofed on all sides.
To protect the walls of the adobe house from rodents, the lower part of the building (about 150 cm from the foundation) must be additionally reinforced with a reinforcing mesh and applied with acrylic plaster. Such a mixture will be too tough for rodents. For the same purpose, you can use a special impregnation for the walls.
It is better to equip window sills with drains, and it is advisable to place visors above the upper part of the windows, which will divert rainwater from the walls of the building.
All wooden thresholds of the house must be waterproofed.
Outdoor and interior decoration the finished house can only be carried out after the final shrinkage of the house.
For greater strength of the house at all junctions of the walls, in window and door lintels, as well as in lower parts openings should be laid with a kind of reinforcement in the form of reed stems or brushwood. The same can be done every three to four rows of block masonry.
If work is suspended, then the adobe wall must be covered with a film in case of rain.
Clay for construction is best checked for fat content by specialists.
A do-it-yourself adobe house will be stronger if you assemble it from blocks, although a monolithic adobe wall using formwork can also be mounted.
And most importantly, clay for construction needs to be prepared ahead of time. It is better if she lays the winter on the site under the influence of frost. In this case, she will gain fortresses. It is also worth preparing straw, which is harvested.
Also, the foundation from monolithic concrete, rubble or rubble concrete to start work in the spring.

Execution of construction

We make adobe blocks

First of all, blocks should be prepared for assembling a house from adobe. For this, two sites should be prepared. One of them should be shaded (under an awning or roof) and well ventilated. Finished bricks will be stored here. And the second is placed in the sun with a slight slope so that the water from the finished brick can freely leave. It is also worth preparing a place for kneading the adobe. It should be about 2x2.5 m deep.

So, the production process of the adobe block looks like this:

Clay, mixed in advance with the selected additives, is laid out in the prepared recess. In this case, the clay is laid out in layers of 15 cm, forming holes in them along the perimeter.
Each layer of the laid out clay is watered with water. It should be understood that the amount of water in the mixture should not exceed ¼ of the total composition of adobe. As a result, the level of the laid out mixture should not exceed 1 meter.
As soon as the clay is completely wet, you can add hay or sawdust, previously moistened with water, into it.
Now we thoroughly knead the mixture using a shovel (which is convenient for small volumes of the mixture), using a concrete mixer, or simply inviting the neighboring children to walk in the clay. We leave the mixed mixture to gain viscosity for a day.

Important: over time, you can check the readiness of the adobe. To do this, a lump of 3 cm is formed from the mixture and thrown from a height of about 2 m. If the lump does not deform and crack when it falls, then the solution is ready.

Now we take the molds and start filling them with the solution. But before that, the inside of the template is moistened with water and sprinkled with straw and sand. The adobe is tamped into a mold, and the upper edge is cut with wire for evenness. To make the blocks dry evenly, five holes are made in them around the perimeter with a cross section of 1.5 cm. The top of the mass is coated with straw and sand.
Then the raw brick is dumped onto a prepared site with a slope. The area should also be sprinkled with sawdust, sand and straw. The blocks are placed at some distance from each other and left so for a day.
After a day, the blocks are turned over on the edge and left in this position for another 3-4 days.
Then the adobe brick is removed under the canopy, folding it in a checkerboard pattern or two per edge. At the same time, it is important to leave gaps between the blocks for high-quality drying.
Fully adobe brick dries within 10-15 days.

Important: completely dry and strong adobe has a uniform shade and does not break as a result of falling from a person's height.

Advice: it is better not to prepare the adobe mixture for future use. It is necessary to harvest such an amount of solution that can be fully developed in one day.

Adobe wall masonry

The walls of an adobe house are laid out in the same way as walls from any other blocks. That is, a tie with the displacement of the blocks of the upper row relative to the blocks of the lower row. A mixture of clay and sand in proportions of 1: 1 or 4: 3 is used as a mortar for adhesion of adobe bricks. Chopped straw or flax fibers are also added here. When laying adobe walls, the thickness of the interblock seam is made no more than 1 cm.

Important: when installing adobe walls, do not rush. In one day, it is better to lay out 1-2 rows of blocks so that they can grab well, and the excess moisture from the solution has time to evaporate.

If there are openings in the wall, then the floors for them are made of wooden board, driving it along the edges 15 cm into the walls. Where the tree rests on adobe, it must be waterproofed.

Adobe house roof

It is better to make a roof for a house made of adobe not very steep. Approximately 30-45 degrees angle. This is done in order to reduce the bursting force of the roof on the walls of the house.
The roof is assembled along the rafters, securely fixing them in the strapping beam at the top of the wall. At the same time, do not forget to waterproof well all joints of wood with clay.
It is better to make the roof overhang at least 70 cm so that the walls of the house are reliably protected from rainwater.
And for the exterior decoration of a finished adobe house, it is best (and most importantly economical) to use a vapor-permeable plaster based on acrylic, silicate or lime.

Important: the floors of an adobe building are performed on the ground, having previously covered it with waterproofing and thermal insulation. A board is used as a finishing finish.