Making Our Adobe Blocks

Growing up out West, I often dreamed of living in a vast openness, an unpopulated wilderness with a view of high majestic mountains, and big skies.  Ultimately, my dream evolved into idea of building and living in a natural earth dwelling.
     Three years ago we selected our land, the site to build our dream natural earth home.  It will sit on a high desert plateau with open vistas in every direction.  In our dream our home will look like it is supposed to be there, like it belongs.  Burrowing Owls will feel comfortable building their nests nearby and coyotes, quail, and deer won't shy from its presence.  Living there we'll feel like our family just trekked down the old Santa Fe Trail, unloaded our wagon and built our new home on the frontier using the material at hand.  Oddly enough, an old stagecoach road, connecting early frontier outposts, runs through the plot of land we selected.
     But in what form would that dwelling take?  We studied homes built of rammed earth, compressed earth block, cob, straw bale, log, stone, sun dried adobe, etc.  Ultimately, we chose to make compressed earth block on site using the soil from our land.  It embodies all the elements of a primitive building that meets today's highest standards: cost effective, durable, efficient, and beautiful.  You can follow the process here  and click from slide to slide.  A firm called Tierra Laja, located near the Rio Grande north of Albuquerque offered us a high quality, competitively-priced Earth Block and was able to build them in three days right on our home site.   Thus, we saved time and money.  To discuss an order from Tierra Laja for your building project, call Laura at (505) 463-4766 or write: tierralaja@gmail.com .

Plans Complete

Joe Tibbets, of Southwest Solar Adobe, is an authority on all things involving earth building.  He is a fine artist in other materials; oils, water color, etc., but it is his artistic talents using his pencil, and t-square, reinforced with his vast knowledge of earth structures that has made our adobe home a possibility.  Given my rough idea of layout, Joe went to work. 
After months of agonizing over every little detail and trimming unnecessary fluff we have our adobe home plans.  These plans have been made available to the public through Southwest Solar Adobe.  SWSA has some very kind things to say about them at the following link: http://www.adobebuilder.com/solar-adobe-house-plan-1870.html We invite you to visit that site for a very comprehensive write-up of the plan's features. If you would like a more detailedversion of the floor plan you can click here.  We wanted a small home but with enough living space to spread out a little and with plenty of storage. Also, we wanted to take advantage of all that New Mexico sunshine to warm us in the winter. Check, check and check. With permits in hand, we can now begin the construction process.

After the sale.

The Florida home is sold (finally) and we've moved into our New Mexico apartment, our temporary quarters snuggled up next to the Rio Grande, while we are building our new home on the other side of the mountain you see here.  Our elevation here on the river is 5,000' whereas on our home site in Santa Fe County we will be nearly 2000' higher at 6834'.  That will make it, on average, 6° cooler in the summer and colder in the winter.  Still our solar adobe design will keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer with very little additional  heating/cooling required.  The adobe design is such that the massive 14" adobe walls and brick floors will absorb heat from the sun (captured through large south facing windows) during the winter days - giving off heat durning the nights.  Then the building mass cools down during the cool summer nights(the overnight low averages in the mid-50's during the hottest months) keeping the inside cool durning the day.

Next week I have an a lunch date with Joe Tibbets, an adobe expert, to review my plans and make sure we meet the new New Mexico adobe building codes.  We will then draw them up properly and go for permits. 

Making the move.

The Florida home is finally up for sale and must be turned into cash before we can begin building our adobe home in New Mexico.  Most of the maintenance here in Florida has been completed but some finishing touches still remain. (Are they ever complete?)  There is lots of interest in our beautiful home but no sales contract yet.  (Click on the link above for a virtual tour.)  We love our home here, near the beach and so many 'beachy' activities, but we are also anxious to move closer to our grandchildren and get back into the mountains of the West.  Every day we keep thinking, maybe this is the day we will get that acceptable offer.

The final drawings for the adobe have still to be completed, although the design and layout is.   The living space will be approximately  1500 ft², with loads of southern exposure for passive solar heating in the winter.  We have a long list of possible sub-contractors and can't wait to get started.  Of course we can't do much more without an acceptable sales contract in hand.