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I thought I would share these before and after pics of my father's house started back in 1980.
Thanks for sharing those great photos. I see your dad wisely chose to use a pitched roof design with overhanging eaves. My granddad's house, built in the El Paso "lower valley" in early 1900s had a pitched roof with really wide eave overhangs. I've mentioned it much earlier in this thread.
Sooo...have you seen any similar construction in recent years in the Albq area? I haven't seen anyone building a real adobe in a long time, although there have been several hay bale homes built in Lincoln county in recent years.
This old building in Ruidoso still stands today, and the water wheel, while restored several times over, is still there. Original building dates to 1868 and is known as Dowlin's Mill after the original owner.
Below, as it looks today - more or less.
http://www.newmexico.org/billythekid/imgs/dowlin_mill.jpg (broken link)
AFAK there are a couple of commercial adobe brick manufacturers in NM. One is in Bernallio and the other in Mule Creek. I think adobes shouldn't cost all that much more to ship than regular cement block.
ABQLifer, Do you know if that was that a poured concrete foundation?
Rich
Take another look at the very first photo in the series and you can see the slab and footing that was evidently poured before the adobe walls were begun. The slab and footings are also apparent in subsequent photos.
AFAK there are a couple of commercial adobe brick manufacturers in NM. One is in Bernallio and the other in Mule Creek. I think adobes shouldn't cost all that much more to ship than regular cement block.
Sure they do, they weigh a lot more than the equivilent concrete block and it takes more adobes to build the same size wall. Concrete blocks are hollow, adobes are solid mud.
There are several other factories in the ABQ and one in Corrales...
The 4"x10"x14" standard adobes in this area (ABQ) run 0.97 to $1.34 each, you pick up, delievery is extra. You also use more mud/mortar for adobes and you use a lot more labor to stack adobes. I think those adobes are 40 pounds each. Some adobe walls are made 24" thick instead of 10"
So, when you figure it all out, adobe walls cost more to build than concrete block walls. How much more, one builder told me four times more...
Cinder blocks are lighter due to the looser structure of the solid portion of the blocks in addition to the hollow design.
Bricks of the fired clay composition are going to weigh essentially the same regardless of shape and composition. I've seen houses constructed of a fired brick that RESEMBLES adobe but is essentially a facing brick. The house is normal wood frame with faux adobe facia.
Cinder blocks are lighter due to the looser structure of the solid portion of the blocks in addition to the hollow design.
Bricks of the fired clay composition are going to weigh essentially the same regardless of shape and composition. I've seen houses constructed of a fired brick that RESEMBLES adobe but is essentially a facing brick. The house is normal wood frame with faux adobe facia.
The adobes manufactured by this referenced company are even heavier, since they are stabilized adobes, stabilized with cement.
Fired adobes ("quemado") can be kiln-fired mud bricks.
Fired adobe should last about as long as the planet!
The size and weight are why I recommended building a small shop/storage shed first. It will show you just how much physical work is involved. Stacking a 40 pound block on top of a 10 ft wall is not easy. Just getting the block up there is hard work. Maybe renting a Bobcat Loader would make things marginally easier or hiring a strong teenage kid to do the lifting. If you do try building one of these things you WILL BE a lot stronger when you finish than when you started.
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