I’m in the Environmental Design class and we’re learning about self-substainable homes. I would like to know the cost of a normal residence and a rammed earth home, both material costs and labor costs. And the houses would be made in southern California.
And yes, I know a thing called GOOGLE, but it wasn’t much help. Hopefully you would!
Originally posted 2008-11-22 07:02:10.
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im not very sure, but it’s ALOT for solar panels, and other stuff
Building a Rammed earth House can be quite cheap in terms of material costs. When you consider the dirt is free (if done in an area where you have access to a large supply.) Tires are easy to come by as scrap just collect them off the side of the road or contact a tire repair shop and get some from them. Tin cans and Glass bottles are also cheap because like tires you can find them all the time on the side of the road. Your biggest expense is going to be the structural and the electrical items that you need to put in like doors and cabinets. However by using those resources available to you like Freecycle or Craigslist you should be able to gain most of the materials cheaply. Labor is free if your willing to do it yourself but if not your costs will grow exponentially.
I have seen reports that you can expect to pay 100 to 150 thousand if you have someone design and build the house for you but if you design and build it yourself you can cut that by 75%. the bulk of your costs are in fixtures, water catchment and energy acquisition through solar panels or wind energy.