Building the Off-Grid Home with Compressed Earth Block (CEB)
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Saturday, February 25, 2012, 10:30 am

A building or home from our DFW clay compressed into earth blocks is Natural, Healthy, Inexpensive, Durable, Quiet, Strong, and Super Energy Efficient. And what could be better than building your home out of your own dirt?

This is a mechanized form of adobe that is easy and quick to build. It is naturally cooler than the outside air on a Texas afternoon and also warmer in the winter. Of course in the North Central Texas area, staying cool is of utmost importance. Adobe does this through latent heat.

Latent heat is thermal energy released or absorbed during a phase-change of a substance such as a phase-change material (PCM) like adobe.

Clay, carrying a negative charge, draws water from the atmosphere when relative humidity is highest, as in early morning. When the relative humidity is low, as in later afternoon, water vaporizes out of the adobe as latent heat of vaporization.

The result is evaporative cooling that lowers the temperature of the building.

With its thick walls, beautiful arches, and the inset windows of adobe homes, Santa Fe comes to mind but CEB can be used for any architectural style.

Our speaker, Tim Pettinger, bought a machine to make compressed blocks for their health benefits. Many chose CEB for energy-effieiciency, low cost, strength, and/or durability.

Tim will share his experiences with us, then answer our questions. To end the program we will watch a video of an actual home being built with CEB.

REI, 4515 LBJ Fwy, Dallas, TX, 10 am, Feb 25.