Thursday, January 01, 2009

Rammed Earth Eco-Shed

There will be a whole new category in the 2009 Shed of the Year competition for eco-sheds and here is one of the frontrunners, the Rammed Earth Eco-Shed at Potter Heigham, Norfolk, owned by joiner Michael Thompson which will also eventually have a green roof. It's a 66m2 building with a maximum height of 2.8m and the budget is a titchy £2,700 (at the moment Michael is on target to hit this). Here's what he says about it at the Readersheds.co.uk site:
"I chose earth as a construction material for several reasons, it has excellent thermal qualities, good soundproofing and best of all it's dirt cheap... in fact its free!!! Also it's a low impact construction method as the materials can usually be sourced very locally, most of the earth came from the footprint of the building itself. The timbers which will make up the roof will be from the local builders merchants and the sedums that will occupy the green roof have been cultivated from soft cuttings."
There's more construction information and an interview about the build at the Rammed Earth is for Everyone blog. And here is a nice slideshow on YouTube.Via Shedblog

2 comments:

  1. hopefully we will see lots more Eco Sheds on readersheds ready for Shed Week!

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  2. Does your local builders merchant provide information on earth rammed sheds, or is this a specialised market still? Will the timber for the roof from the builders merchants simply sit on the compacted earth?

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