Start Date:   February 29, 2008
Main Contact:   Adam Howland, Construction Manager
Project Manager :   Mateo Paneitz, E.D.
Current Status:   In progress

Purpose

To practice rammed earth construction techniques that will be used to build the Vocational School, create additional staff housing at Parque Chimiyá, and provide a house for a local indigenous family.

Description

As Long Way Home's volunteer and internship program attracts more people, the need for on-site housing increases. A neighbor living near Parque Chimiyá offered to let us rent an abandoned structure on his property. The adobe house was uninhabitable in its current state, leading Long Way Home to make an arrangement with the owner of the property. We will reconstruct the house if the family will allow it to be used as staff housing for two years, after which point the family will have the new home for themselves. During these two years, additional volunteer and staff housing will be built at the site of the new Vocational School.

Environmental Contribution

Tire building is an alternative construction technique that uses discarded tires and dirt as building materials. The tires are filled with dirt found on the property and then stacked to form walls. Through the construction of this house, local Comalapans will be able to participate in rammed earth construction, thereby learning this simple building technique that is low in cost (used tires are free), uses locally available materials, and provides an environmentally friendly way to use items that would otherwise be sitting in a landfill. The house's kitchen will use another rammed earth technique called earth bag, in which plastic sacks are pounded full of dirt and stacked like bricks.

The house also takes advantage of trash filled bottles as an alternative building material. Long Way Home is showing people how to minimize the impact of trash by ramming it into empty plastic bottles. Instead of burning trash, it can be used for building.

Filling with trash bottles Putting trash bottles into place with cobb Bottle fill is covered with cobb Cobb is covered with lime stucco mix

Make a Donation

Click here if you would like to help donate toward the develpment of this project or just make a general donation to the vitality of the project. Long Way Home appreciates your contributions and interest in helping make the world a better place.

Pre existing crumbling adobe house The Foundation of tires The Walls go up Tire House Interior before finishing

Wall of Tires Tire House Interior after finishing

Current Projects


• The Parque Chimiyá
  Project
• Reforestation Project
  and Plant Nursery
• Water Distribution
  Project
• Técnico Maya
  Vocational School
  Project
• Rammed Earth
  House
• Appropriate Technology
  Project
• Environmental and Health Education Project