Walk the journey with us as we build a contemporary, environmentally-friendly house in the City of Falls Church, Virginia.
"Erdhaus" is German for "earth house" which represents one of the coolest aspects of the home -- we're using the dirt from the property to create compressed earth bricks, which become the exterior walls of the house.
On Martin Luther King Day, just before Andreas and I headed out of town for business trips, we met on our lot with our architect, John Spears; general contractor, Aaron Holmes; and EarthCraft technical advisor, Chris Conway. We gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony to recognize the milestones we achieved so far and commemorate the start of the construction project for our new home. Since it was in the teens and low 20 degrees (F) for several days prior to and during our groundbreaking, the topsoil was frozen and extremely hard, so we were able to break away only a few pieces of dirt. We enjoyed some champagne after the groundbreaking (non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider for Andreas, since he was flying that day). Here are some photos (note the beatiful super-silt and tree protection fencing Andreas installed in the background).
What a nice pair of manly studs you are! ;-)
ReplyDelete- Dave H