Making Bricks, April 20-27, 2008

A few months after Aaron picked up the block machine in Mexico, we began making the large quantities of brick needed for our house. We used both dirt from our site and several truckloads of dirt brought in from elsewhere, and we chose to stabilize the bricks with 5% lime. We rented an earth blender to mix lime into our soil evenly, and we borrowed a backhoe and ended up renting a forklift as well. The blender came with a crew of two, and we typically hired one other person each day as well. Friends stopped by to pitch in from time to time (thanks, guys!).

Production went haltingly the first day due to problems with the rented blender, and then things picked up for the next few days. Every day had its own share of problems with the machines, but only very minor ones for Mariana, our compressed earth block machine.

We made about 7,000 10 x 14 x 4 inch blocks and about 2,000 7 x 14 x 4 inchers.

Aaron getting ready to use Mariana, our lovely compressed earth block machine from Mexico, for the first time.

Here's an overview of the operation we set up on our land. First, soil goes into the blender, the machine on the left, which mixes the soil with lime and water; then it goes to the compressed earth press, which in this picture is being fed with the backhoe; then the bricks roll off a little roller conveyer and are stacked onto pallets; the pallets are wrapped in plastic wrap and moved away from the machine and left to cure for a few weeks.