While there are many different approaches to making plans small, inexpensive home, I’m going to be describing the one I see as the best choice for the average person with a small budget, and I’ll tell you why. There are many influencing factors affecting our world right now; some are new, and some are changing very rapidly. As time goes on, the struggle for resources becomes more complex and frenzied. Many modern building techniques, while effective and convenient for the infrastructure we have set up, are really quite wasteful and could be seen to encourage what could be called “living beyond our means.” Sustainability is something that we are all going to be hearing emphasized increasingly as time goes on. Building with natural materials whose production consumes little energy is a part of this idea.
The benefits of using natural materials to create your plans small inexpensive home are numerous, and I’ll describe some of them now. The first material I want to talk about is cob, which is a mixture of clay, sand, straw, water, and a binder such as wheat paste or manure for cohesiveness. When cob dries it is like concrete; very hard and strong. If you were to make a six inch wedge shaped shelf along a wall made of cob, once dried you would be able to stand, even jump up and down on it and it will not crumble. The chopped straw that is uniformly mixed in adds enormous tensile strength to the material. While it can be eroded or reshaped with enough water, it’s possible to seal the surface with an oil which will waterproof it. This is useful for cob floors because after treatment they can be mopped easily. Cob has relatively low insulating value, so if your wall is all cob it’s important to make it very thick to ensure retention of hot or cold air. Conversely, it works as excellent thermal mass, meaning it absorbs heat or cold and stores it very well for long periods of time. This can be useful when designing your plans small inexpensive home for passive solar heating. A dark wall in a position to get lots of sun during the days in winter will soak up that heat all day, and throw it off into the air all night.
Earthbags are another useful technique to have at your disposal when making plans small inexpensive home. As you might have guessed, they are just burlap or some similar type of bags filled with highly compressed dirt, which is important to prevent settling from occurring. Earthbags can be used as a floor base to be covered with a layer of cob and then plaster. Any gaps between bags can be smoothed over beautifully this way. Barbed wire is sometimes used between the bags to help keep them in place, which is very effective. Stem walls built on top of the foundation of your choice are extremely stable.
The benefits of these different techniques are numerous. From an environmental standpoint there is little to no pollution when your house is finally demolished, since the bulk of the structure built using these techniques initially came from the build site itself. In fact, many people have built small homes like this themselves with the help of friends and family. Do some research and you’ll find that methods will be effective in helping you make plans small inexpensive home.
