Comments on: The Surprising Beauty of Rammed Earth Floors

By: Flo

Flo — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:10:20 +0000

Hi,
I’m in the UK where rammed earth floors are very rare, partly because of the climate and drying times etc. However, I am determind! Can anyone answer the queery about whether underfloor heating tubes will be damaged by ramming, and also, whether anyone knows about ramming around floor sunk electric points? Is it o.k to put heavy items of furniture, i.e sofas and chairs onto rammed earth floor?
Thank you, your help is much appreciated,
Flo
Your help would be much appreciated

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:54:46 +0000

Hi All, Our new office is a timber frame with strawbale exterior covered with adobe made with chopped straw and our clayey glacial till that we screened. We used a similar adobe for the first pour of our floor in the basement. This pour is now near dry 4 weeks later. There is minor cracking and when I stand on it with work boots I can compact it 1″ or so with a good stomp. I am planning on running a plate compacter over it prior to the finish coat and I’m interested in peoples opinions on this. For the final coat the plan is to screen our till to 1/16″ minus, mix in fine sand and use some interesting coloured clay from Medicine Hat as our till is grey. I’m interested in other areas to get some colour as well. Thanks,

By: Leonie

Leonie — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:21:58 +0000

I like the idea of earthern floors but how do you manage termites and allow for inspection of termites. How do you get through the council regulations?

By: Sandra Pierzinski

Sandra Pierzinski — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:06:09 +0000

One of the posts mentions “assuming a radiant heat floor”- I am wondering about how to keep the tubing from being squashed by the tamping…
Thanks for all of the ideas and info.

By: carlos de luna

carlos de luna — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 04:12:18 +0000

can you make crushed lime stone floors and if yes what is the mix.

By: juan

juan — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:05:04 +0000

I just made mine Mixed one part caliche one part local earth two coats of linseed oil, three coats of polyurethane. Its healthy beautiful, love consistency, color, how if feels barefoot, was made in san angelo tx, come check it out

By: alan adams

alan adams — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:44:05 +0000

I will be using earthen floors in my home and have thought of experimenting with the use of a very wet initial “pour” so that it cracks like a dry lake, then filling the cracks with a contrasting color of earth/clay waddya’all think?

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:23:53 +0000

That floor is beautiful. I saw the same show and still have it on the DVR.

Do you know of any resources for actual rammed-earth floor construction? From what I’ve seen, dancingrabbit and most other sites cover adobe floors that go in as wet as concrete and aren’t rammed.

Daniel: how much liquid do you mean by “a little more liquid than usual”? Were you thinking just slightly more moist than the “dry” rammed-earth floor, or a lot more, as with an adobe floor? How much water is required to activate the lime?

I’ve read enough about cracking in adobe floors that I’m growing to like the idea of damp rammed-earth.

Any information or opinions are welcome.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:52:23 +0000

These floors could easily be made far more durable and certainly scratch resistant by adding 20-30% natural lime to the dirt mix, using a bit more liquid than usual to cause tighter settling (with a longer drying/curing time obviously) and then – assuming a radiant heat floor – running extremely hot water into the floor tubes and applying any number of natural resins to the hot floor followed by a “baking” time to harden the resin. Just as easy to repair, but not as likely to ever need it, plus a much more water tolerant surface.