Canvas & Glue Paintable Shell for foam and plywood

[James Cockerham]

Hey,

Came across this on a DIY travel trailer building site for ultralight foam builds.

Canvas or fiberglass glued to plywood or foam sheet then painted.

A lot lighter than ferrocement.

https://www.tnttt.com/viewforum.php?f=55

Thinking about dropping the trailer, and replacing with an earthen floor, capped by one of the larger Hexayurt designs.

https://permies.com/f/80/earthen-floor

This to be used as a working base on a forested hilltop, in preparation for a cordwood timber frame build.

Will be looking at "Physical Aspects of Distributed Infrastructure" document on Hexayurt mainpage for creature comfort ideas in the panel shell for dirt battery.

Anyone gone this route?

Thanks for the inspiration,

James C.

[Percival du Chat Gris]

Hello,

Don't know entirely what you are going for, but ... you probably want a layer between you and the ground.  If you are looking for inexpensive and durable, but not necessarily pretty, I've used billboard vinyl successfully for a number of applications.  And if you decide to put other flooring over it, it does make a good vapor barrier as well.  Putting in a wood, cobb, or stone floor on top of it later is always a possibility, but allows you to move in that much earlier and not have to deal with the heat/moisture issues of a packed earthen floor.

One of the delights of starting with a hexayurt design, is that you can have a place, ready to live in, fairly fast, and then you can work toward what your long-term plan is, by incorporating your base form into your design.  I helped someone build a "hyperadobe" (earth bag) house around their hexayurt, doing as much as they can in a day, and having the interior to be completely livable across the process.  Building up your cordwood frame on the outside can also be done in sections that way, while you are right on sight, and living comfortably.

Also, the hexayurt design allows for you to figure out what facilities you will need, what your space feels like and can be reconfigured quickly and easily as you give the living space a dry run, to figure out if they size/layout/etc will actually suit you, before you put the heavy, long-term structures in place.  Remember, also, that hexes tile, so you can build several different rooms without sacrificing strength and allow for future expansion, or figure out what your needs along those lines are by reconfiguration until you are happy with your design, and then begin to build your more structural elements around/supporting/supported by, your hexayurt build.

For example, one of my dear friends now has a ring of six rooms around an open central courtyard, which is their garden, and three additional rooms (one the mudroom/entrance, the other two bedrooms) all 120 degrees off of the center set of rooms.  That design just sort of grew, flowing from what was desired, as the build started.  And, indeed, as time went on, because the way the hexayurt and outer structure was constructed, there was a root-cellar dug (over time) underneath the back room between the bedrooms, and then shored up once dug.  And there is a thought to, at some point, continue the dig, to make either a basement or a tunnel to another back outbuilding, at some point, so they don't have to go outside to get to the shed.

Just some thoughts.

Percy

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