Building an earth bag home is a key way to stay green and help benefit the earth by using natural materials. Environmentally friendly homes are becoming more popular than ever before and prove to be energy efficient and low cost. There are some limitations to these homes, as they obviously cannot be constructed into mansions, but with some careful planning and close working with individual building codes from your area can result in a wonderful home for you to enjoy with low energy consumption costs. Taking all of this into account, you will also need the materials to build your earthen home.

Materials for the home can be obtained from the actual area in which you build your home. You need to make sure that the area in which you are building has adequate amounts of available earth within the property, or else you might have to actually bring in earth from somewhere else! You have to also make sure that there is no exposed piping or other underground lines in the area where you wish to build so that you do not destroy expensive communications lines or hit a gas vein.

Mainly, the materials needed will be earth from the area, plaster or stucco, earth bags (burlap bags or polypropylene bags are used), minimal wood and metal depending on your stairs, window and door needs. Shorter homes will take much less materials and will be sturdier. Homes that have more than one floor are a little more difficult to create and may also call into use more building materials such as wood and metal. Although it may seem like a lot of materials once sorted out, it does cost much less than a traditional wooden or prefabricated home. The final design for the home may differ slightly from your initial view, but each home is unique and very easy to build.

The only disadvantages to such a home would have to deal with materials used to build the home. You can really use almost any material for earthen bag homes. Anything from dirt, sand and gravel to rocks and even rice hulls can be used for the homes but other have higher moisture content which can be detrimental to the final structure. Water may leak into the home if the outer walls are not completely filled in and are not coated with enough stucco or plaster material. These homes are also not suitable for very moist climates or areas with hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes for structural integrity reasons!