Build Your Own House

hello all,

I have followed with great excitement many of these posts, even though I have never posted anything myself until now. It's great and very inspiring to watch other houses appear, so thank you all. I don't imagine starting to build my own house on my block (near the Grampians in Victoria) for at least another couple of years, but I am trying to do as much research and planning as early as possible. Where I live at present I am hoping to build a small vege garden with rammed earth walls, to get some practice and make sure my form work is adequate. Even if it's an over engineered vege garden, I don't mind.

Along those lines I was wondering if anyone has ever seen, or has for sale, old formwork for ramming walls? I don't image people would have any use for them once their house is built (unless they cut them down and use them for other things I guess), but I haven't yet been able to source any. any clues?

many thanks

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redbeard.

Redbeard,

Great to hear that you are planning your own build in the future. I think you have the right idea starting to experiment with the rammed earth on your garden walls. In regards formwork you can keep an eye out for metal formwork shutters as they do occasionally come up on ebay/gumtree etc. I made my own formwork out of second hand formply and timber (from ebay and local recycled building material yard). I picked up the threaded bars and nuts also from ebay. My formwork has suffered a battering so I imagine that is why you rarely see ply rammed earth formwork up for sale. I am also keeping it for use in other projects.

Bluey.

Thanks Bluey,

I'll keep an eye out. I'm working on a Google SketchUp version of my house plan which I'll post when finished. I'd love to get some comments on it.

redbeard

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redbeard.

I'd definately be interested in your designs red. I'm working on some experimental formwork based on a lot of what I've seen here on the forums. I'm going to make a corner form, coffin form and a straight form. I'm hoping to re-use the corner form sections for the coffin forms and the straight forms will be used in the same method bluey developed.

I'm having a hard time trying to track down a tamper or rammer. Does anyone have a supplier in the Sydney - Wollongong area? I've done a few test walls by hand have come to the conclusion its to hard on my bones! FWIW, I was actually quite surprised at how well my formwork held up when tamping by hand. I'm using recycled school desks which I thought were ply but were actually chipboard.

I did see some rammed earth formwork for sale on Gumtree but the guy wanted $25k for it.

From my very limited experience. I'd suggest digging up some samples from where you plan on building the home. Ram yourself some blocks and keep some samples in a glass jar. From my place, i have real lot of clay in my soil so I add around the same ammount of sand. I'm pretty chipper about that as I can extract the sand far easier than dirt. You may like the colour or you might want to adjust etc

With your garden walls - are you going to line the inside of the wall with anything? What kind of height will you be going to?

Cheers
Gazza

ps: bluey, i've really enjoyed reading your threads and insights here. thanks heaps!