We NEED to Figure This Out!

All right guys, we're back at the roundhouse. It's adobe block time. We've got some tests to run, some things to figure out. Should be fun. Where did we leave the people last, babe? Well, we did a horse shelter and got super sidetracked. We did. So we're back at the house. The last thing we did at the house was we did that one little section with adobe blocks from Gurudoss. Right. But we made the mortar here with some clay we got from Wilcox Rock and Sand and washed concrete sand. And we were a little worried about the strength of it because it got rained on. Oh, here, let me show you. We did mortar and we made bricks all with the same stuff. The bricks have straw in them as well. And actually the bricks seem pretty good. I mean, you can tell they're definitely a little sandy. Sandy. You can see where the rain hit this and it washed some of it off, but overall it's still in pretty good shape. So we're like, we're trying to figure out how to move forward because we want stronger bricks and stronger mortar, but we also need to be able to get enough material to do it consistently. But also we're like at the point where, do we need stronger stuff? Because this has been rained on several times since we put it up and it's fine. It's okay. So maybe it's fine. Maybe we're overthinking it like we do everything else, but. You know, adobe has been around a long time. I really, really, so some of the oldest buildings in the world are all adobe. And like, like we said, it's going to be covered. It's going to be plastered. We're just worried about this time of year, making sure they last through monsoon. Right. Okay. So today we have three buckets of different types of soil. This bucket is from Will Barrow Steve's property. We probably won't be using it simply because we can't get it in bulk. Then we have the regular AB mix from Wilcox rock and sand and another type of soil from Wilcox rock and sand. I can't remember what it's called, so I'll put it right here. Here's the problem though. Both of these have rocks in them. So for the mortar, we would sift it for the blocks. We could just leave them in. And then at that point, we're basically making hyper adobe blocks. We know it locks up, but we also wouldn't be tamping it. So we don't know. We don't know guys. So today we have a mold with three bricks that we can make. So we're going to do all three different types. We're also going to sift some out as mortar, and then we'll see what it looks like in the morning and make a decision and get material here so we can continue working on this house. Hey, just a quick PSA. We had a weird software bug with our microphone in this episode. We had already recorded it. We didn't realize it till afterwards. And some of the audio in this video is rough. We're really sorry about it. We're talking to the microphone company, trying to figure out what is going on. Hopefully we'll have it fixed by next time. But just so you know, we know it sounds bad and we're sorry. This bucket right here is from Will Barrow Steve's property. Will Barrow Man. Steve the Will Barrow Man. We are going to just sift it. I know I'm not going to use this simply because I don't have a way to bring in 100 tons of it. We don't want to dig up a huge hole in this yard. But this is really great stuff. It is very clay heavy. He has cliche in his soil. It's really good stuff. It would be great to build with. And I wish that we could. So I'm going to, I'm just going to sift a little bit for like a mortar line and just see what it looks like. I've already experimented here with little tiny balls. It feels really good when it's wet. This would be really great for plaster work. But what if it's too clay heavy and then it just cracks? Or you put sand in it. You'd add stuff to this. And obviously if we go into like full production mode, we'll be getting our big sifter that, do you remember the guy's name? I can't remember his name. Somebody made us this amazing sifter like four years ago. We haven't been able to use it very much. But it will come in really, really handy if we end up having to sift all of our AB mix, which. It's also big enough that we could borrow our neighbor's tractor, sift a whole bunch in one day. And then we just, you know, give the tractor back. That's the thing. Like, I don't want to introduce a whole other labor step. You know, like we're trying to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible with as minimal steps in labor as possible. And I don't want to, I don't want to introduce an extra step that we got to do by hand. Here's Steve's sifted mix. So we're going to leave that there and see what it looks like tomorrow. Next we have this mystery soil. I cannot remember the name of it. I will put it here again. We're going to sift this because I think this would make really great stuff. It looks weird. Yeah. It feels a little silty to me. And I thought he said it had more clay in it, but I can't remember. It looks sandy to me. It does feel sandier, but like, not like mortar sand. Like it's really fine. Like almost like, I wonder if it's from the beach sand stuff. Oh yeah. It might be beach sand. All right. So we have Steve's. That was the first one. And this is the weird one. The unnamed. Yeah. I cannot remember. This I think is going to be the magic, but I mean, we've used AB on everything else. This does make me excited for plaster just because I love messing with it. That feels really nice. This feels like more clay actually than the other. So maybe you're right. Maybe it does have more sand. This feels like really fine sand. Yeah. So the question is, if that has too much clay, is it just going to crack? I don't think it has too much clay. There's been places where we have put AB mix down to like drive over and whenever it rains and it gets oversaturated, it just turns into like a big, muddy mess and it loses all of its strength. So that's the thing that worries me a little bit about the AB mix all by itself. It also wasn't tamped though. True. Or in a form. These are the existential questions that we're asking as we experiment with all this stuff. We're going to see what happens. All right. You want to make some blocks with this and go from there? Yeah. So today's video is sponsored by us and our events here in our homestead. So we have four events I'm going to tell you about real quick. We have two homestead tours, one at the beginning of September, one at the beginning of October. Homestead tours here are a really great way to see HyperAdobe, SuperAdobe, LavaCrete, SolarShed, the Chicken Garden, the HyperAdobe Roundhouse. You can see all of these things all in one place in one day. Plus you get to nerd out with us about all sorts of off-grid systems. We spend the whole day answering everyone's questions. And so like, if you're interested in living this way, or if you just want to see this stuff in person, I think this is a great opportunity to come out, eat delicious food, meet really cool people, and spend the day getting to experience the tiny, shiny homestead in person, which is cool. Then we also have two workshops coming up a little bit later, one in October, which is the LavaCrete Accent Wall Workshop. We're building a really cool accent wall inside the roundhouse. Paul Schwamm and Guru Das are going to be here. So you'll get some hands-on experience with LavaCrete. You get to see how to run utilities and outlets and do cool 3D recess stuff. Like it's going to be a really fun little project. It's not going to be a ton of physical labor because it's not that big of a wall. It'd be a good way to like get hands-on without wearing yourself out. So on the flip side of that, we have the HyperAdobe and LavaCrete Workshop in November. And so we're actually going to, and I'll just flip you around right here, right over there. We're going to be building another wall, but we're going to build it with HyperAdobe and then clad it with LavaCrete. So this will be a little more work. We got a lot of wall to lay with HyperAdobe. So if you're wanting to get some hands-on with how to mix and compact and lay those bags, this will be really good. And then also get some hands-on with some LavaCrete and how to build those forms and put the rebar in. And Paul and Guru Das will also be back. So if you have specific questions for them, they're great resources to have on hand. Anyway, like I said, for events, you can go to tinyshinyhome.com slash events and you can see them all and you can choose which one you want to learn more about and to sign up for and to register for. So we would love to see you here. Come hang out, eat delicious food, meet cool people, see cool stuff. tinyshinyhome.com slash events. Good morning, friends. We're back out. We're going to look at our three test mixes. So first was the heavy clay caliche content. It's got a little bit of strength to it. It's not bad, but it did kind of break off pretty easily. The beach sand one looked really solid. I've already broken it here. It looked really solid when it was one piece, but then as soon as I just put a pressure on it, like look at that. That is not... It's also very sandy. Way too sandy. Yeah. And then the AB mix, which we broke off, you know, we know what this does. It takes a lot more force to break it. So I think probably AB mix is going to be the way. The only thing I don't like about that is that we have to sift it for the mortar mix. But yeah, it's definitely more structural for sure. It did have some cracking in it because it has a lot of clay. But again, I don't think cracking is an issue. I think it'll be fine. Yeah, I think it'll be fine. And we won't know for sure on the bricks. I just took this form off this morning. This beach sand one looked really good, but it's so soft. I mean, I guess they're both still soft. They're pretty, pretty wet still, but it's really clean looking. I just, I don't think it's going to be structural at all. I feel like it's going to, it's going to be like that, that mortar mix where it looks really good. And then you just put a little pressure on and it'll just break. That's my theory. Although there is straw on it. So maybe not. Who knows? We'll see. Who knows? Anyway, we're going to let these dry and see how they do. In the meantime, we're going to get back up there and start laying some bricks. And using the original mortar mix for now? Yeah. Cause that's all we really have. And it, it seems like it's okay. And then we'll get some AB mix here and we'll work on switching over. All right guys, it wouldn't be a new project without a new tool. This is the Makita DS4012, not to be confused with the 4011, which we learned pretty quickly on the internet. You don't want the 11, you want the 12, because the 12 can go both ways forward and backwards. And it's variable speed, which is perfect for plaster and mortar mixing. So this is going to make our job way easier. Ideally, this will happen when we're doing this in the truck. It's not global. Yeah, this is kind of a pain. All right, let's do the rest of the hoe. It's too hard because the edges aren't flat. It just keeps catching and bouncing everywhere. Are you silently judging us? We're really having to like, relearn our process here. We're used to moving so fast when we're doing earth bags, because we're trying to get the mix in at a, when it's at a certain moisture level and then get it compacted before it dries out too much. And this stuff, it's already pre-made. We don't have to rush. We just got to, we got to slow down a little, one block at a time. It feels weird because we're used to busting it, but I think long-term we're going to end up moving faster by moving slower. Does that make sense? That's my theory. My theory is that if we take our time, we're going to become people. I think if we move too fast, we're going to get burned out. I think doing the same thing over and over for too many days, you get burned out. So you're probably right. All right guys, get a good early morning block session in. So we wanted to get a good couple of layers on the bottom in this pie so that then we can start doing our stacking and make everything match up. So yeah, we're going to take a break while it's super hot during the day. We're going to come back later this evening and hopefully do some more. And then I'm hoping that we can use all that straw in the big metal tub and get ourselves like a huge brick mix, and then set all those bricks and then get that thing cleaned out so that we can do the mortar with our big tool. Because doing it by hand is a huge, huge pain and time sucks. So anyway, that's it for now. I'm going to save us so much time. Yeah, but it's really hard to hold on to. Yeah, it's pretty powerful. I feel very weak. So do you do two of the... I got to do one more thing of clay. We finally got a chance to really use this thing for real. It works really great. It's pretty impressive. Our problem is we ran out of straw. We don't have enough straw, but we are just going to put a little bit of water on top, put plastic over it, and we will get straw tomorrow and finish. And then we can like make all this in bricks and see how much it makes. Right, like doing it like this is way less like manual labor. We can just, I mean, you still have to shovel it in there. But that took hardly any time to mix that up. And that's going to be decent, probably, what do you think, 20 bricks? No, way more than that. Because that was like three wheelbarrows worth of material or more. And so especially we could even fill it up more if we wanted. We just need enough straw and then we can just like cover it, let it sit overnight and kind of ferment a little bit. I think I would really like to fill this up more, maybe even after we do stuff. Yeah. Fill it higher to where we just put straw in tomorrow. Yeah. And get it up to like almost full and see how many bricks we can make in one trough. In one trough, yeah. That'll tell us a lot about how much material we need and all that, so. And how long it's going to take and what's actually going to go into it. Yeah. So that's good, but it does mean that we still have to mix our mortar by hand until we get this batch out, which is kind of a pain. That'll be tomorrow, that's okay. We need a secondary bucket. Hey, if you ever want to get me another trough, I would be happy to get another trough. We kind of need one anyway for when we do the interior plaster because doing it like this, I mean, think about how much time we're going to save. So much time. So we should just go get another trough. Maybe, we'll see. Seriously? A person had recognized me and left that place in the aisle and brought it in to camp within the grounds. Oh yeah? You're not going to camp, you're going to go say hi. Do we have any mortar? Far from all the things I left behind. I hear the call of restless skies, the dreams I couldn't chase. The moments I can't face. The streets unfold into the night and woven dreams escape my sight. The winds hum through the pines, a name that still entwines. City is asleep and I caught so deep. Footsteps dragging slow and cold air on my skin is pulling me back in. Silence starts to sing, I feel the sins grow. Surrendering to light that pierces through the night. A thousand miles of stories told. And the rust and gold, yet still I hear the sound of roots beneath the ground. The city is asleep and I caught so deep. Hey, do you want to see something cool? Behind the scenes here, I have been working on building a legit like floor plan of the roundhouse where every outlet and vent and light and fan and plumbing fixture and water line and propane line and drain line, where all of it is going to go. We're finally getting to that point where we need to know exactly where things will live, how they will get from point A to point B to maybe point C. And so I have been rebuilding the entire floor plan of the house in Adobe Illustrator because I'm a designer. That's like the software that I know. I can build things to scale. So I'm going to give you just a quick tour of my floor plan because I've been working really hard on it. I want to show it to you. OK, so here's the deal. We start with an old drum. This is very old. Like we are halfway up the windows in this shot. Matching up the walls was tricky. I had to do a combination of trying to match to the drone picture and then also from actual measurements that we got off of the roundhouse. So this shows where all of the doors and the windows are. You can see there's a few doors that are kind of floating in space because we haven't put them in yet. That's because we haven't done our framed walls. So here's where all of our framed walls are going to come into play. Most of them will be used to separate between the bedrooms. But then we're also going to be doing like some framed walls along the back of some existing walls. I'll go ahead and throw in our appliances here. You can see in this section, this is the utility room, right? So this is actually going to be where everything originates in the house. And the trench from the Lavaker utility building comes in here. So we'll bring in power and water and Internet into this area. Now, maybe this would be a good point to show you what our Adobe walls are going to look like. So we turn those on. You can start to see why we didn't go full width with these Adobe bricks, because we have to get every single wire and water line and networking line from this area to all these other parts of the house. And so this will allow us to run up in the framed wall and then into this sort of little chase here and then down into a framed wall to wherever we need to go. We can also turn on our counters and cabinets. If you're new here a long time ago, we did already put all of the plumbing in the ground under the foundation. So this is what that looks like. And this line over here goes over to the septic and then everything else is already plumbed into place and it's stubbed up through the ground. We've got plumbing fixtures so we can turn all those on. You can see we've got, you know, sinks and toilets and showers we have. And then we can turn on our water lines where we can show. Hold on, let me turn this off so it's a little easier to see. So you can see we have mixed bibs. We've got hose bibs. We've got hot and cold water at all these different places. I think we've simplified our propane down to one appliance, which will be the oven and range. And one of the main reasons for that is that Ashley likes to cook a lot. She likes to bake. She likes to cook. And the size oven that she wants, I think, isn't going to be realistic to run off of electric. Zooming back out, we also have all of the outlets. So there's all of our outlets. And I also have them, you can see they're all connected, right? So this one means it will be on its own breaker and then everything else is sort of downstream of that. That's what all these connections mean. We also have all the switches. So you can see the switches there. We also have our data lines. So these are going to be hardwired, either ethernet or fiber connections, which are going to originate from the network rack here. And then also we will have Wi-Fi access points and smoke detectors in every room and then through certain parts of the house. We're also going to have many split systems. So you can see we've already planned for many splits with outdoor units that may do one or two units at the same time. I think this one over here is going to do three units. I'm pretty sure we're going to go with two units in the big room because it is so big. Speaking of that, if you're wondering how many square feet the house is, I also did that. So I came in here and I redrew each floor area of each room. So basically we ended up at about 2,400 square feet of interior walkable space, not including the earthbag walls, not including the framed walls. This is just the spot where you can walk around and do stuff in, right? So venting is really the only thing that we need to consider as we build these Adobe walls. And so a lot of these vents are going to go straight up to the roof or through the framed walls. So you can see we've got our dryer vent that's going to go up there. We've got some plumbing vents. We are also going to put in an ERV or a recovery, what do those stand for? Energy recovery ventilator system in this big room. And so that means we're going to have one unit here and one unit here. So as we build these block walls up, we're going to need to leave a six inch diameter space for that. And we're also, I think we're mostly done with our lights and fans and stuff like that. Now, the other fun thing is that I have also built out the entire roof structure. So that is eventually what the roof structure is going to look like. And then we're also in the process of trying to figure out how to plan and get quotes for the actual panels that will go on it. Yeah, that's what I've been working on. And it finally feels like it's getting somewhere and it's really helping inform us. Once we get past the adobe walls and we start getting the roof on and get the floor poured, we're going to know where all these utilities go. We did a YouTube live this morning and then afterwards, Ashley and I went into Tucson and we obtained a bunch more bricks. We got 70 bricks from Awareness Ranch and that's pretty much all he's got left. So that means we're going to have to get on making our own really soon. We also got some straw because, as you remember yesterday, we were trying to mix our own brick mix, block mix, and we didn't have enough straw. So we got a bunch of straw and we're, like I said, we're getting ready to ramp up production. So I'm going to get the straw out of here and then I'm going to unload all these adobe blocks. Now, trying to think ahead a little bit, trying to be a little bit smarter. So instead of just loading them onto the ground, I'm going to go ahead and load them into these two windows here because these are the next sections of wall that we're going to be working on. That way we're only having to move them, well, we have to move them from the window up to the wall. But anyway, one last time, right? If we can just go from here to here and not from there to there to there to there. So we'll get those blocks moved and then we'll get the straw in here, make a bunch of bricks and then see how they turn out. Okay, guys, quick brick update. I turned these over this morning, so they're not even that old, but this one just fell over and look at this. There is nothing holding this thing together. Look at that. That is ridiculous. So beach sand is not what we want. We're going to chalk that up to a fail. The AB one has a big crack right here, but sorry to shake the camera, but it's still like I can't break it. So we're going to let this one keep curing and then we'll make our final decision whether we bring in AB for the bricks or we just keep using the other stuff, you know, like I know we said we were worried about it being silty, but like the bricks that we made, they seemed really solid. And even going to pick up these bricks from Gerudas today, I think they got a big rain last night. And so, you know, these are all looking pretty rough. There's a lot of straw visible. There's a lot of melted material around them when we picked them up. So, you know, maybe we're just overthinking this. Like if they get wet and a little bit washes off, it's not a big deal because we're going to plaster it and we're going to roof it. So I don't know, we're just still in our heads a little bit. But I think once this cures for a few more days, we can make a more informed decision about which way to move forward. The pros of sticking with this is that the material is way cheaper and we don't have to sift it, but it is siltier and, you know, like you can brush stuff off of it. Like it's just not as solid. The pros of this is that it is much harder, like nothing's flaking off that, but it does mean that we have to sift it for the mortar, not for the bricks. We can leave the stones in for the brick. But I think we want to stick with one material for either. Like we don't want to do our mortar with this clay material over here that's silty and then stick it to the AB mix. Like I think we want to keep it all the same if we can. So anyway, experiment almost done, decision almost made. And now that we've got this big batch, we're going to throw the straw in here in a few minutes, mix this up and make a bunch more bricks. And that'll also really help us see at a little bit more scale whether this mix is going to be a problem or not. Good evening. We are back and hopefully making some adobe blocks this evening. We have rain to the south of us and lightning and storms, but it looks like it's going to pass by without hitting us. We forgot to get a tarp. We were going to get a tarp so we could cover the bricks that we make. I think we're safe for tonight. We'll get a tarp another day. So the next thing we have to do, we have this trough filled about halfway with our clay and sand and a little bit of straw, but we went and got more bales. So we're going to add more straw to it and make as many blocks as we can with a half a tank of mud. And that will give us a better idea of how many blocks we can make with a full tank and how much material we need to be getting. Yeah, that's the plan. Really? Seriously? What? Dude. It's always been you just dancing with me. It's a tale as old as history. What can I do to make a mistake? I don't mind the time it takes. Just give me a time and place to tell the truth. We've been through some buffs and energy. We've been poor. It's always been you just dancing with me. It's a tale as old as history. What can I do to make a mistake? Let's do it again. Don't mind the time it takes. Just give me a time and place.