Adobe advice... what's a mudsmith?

Dr Robert Rich
MUDSMITH

L. P. O. Box 214
Healesville
Victoria 3777
Australia
Phone +61 3 5962 3875

Please Note
   Mudsmith.net has moved. I have left all my goodies here for the moment, so feel free to look around. However, all of it has been copied to another server, and that's the one being updated as of August 2002.
   To compensate for your inconvenience, you may request a free copy of one of my articles on owner-building and conservation. All of them have appreared in Earth Garden magazine. Please select from the list here, then send an

  • Poured earth walls -- a lesson in self-reliance
  • What's wrong with a brick?
  • A sewn roof for a water tank
  • The built-in tea towel
  • Cement in earth walls
  • Curtains as doors
  • Termites in old timber
  • Mud brick (adobe) domes and circles
  • Strawbale house on a platform
  • You don't need so much light.
  • What kind of firewood is the best?
  • Saving money on refrigeration
  • Making your own fridge
  • Ammunition for arguing with officialdom about earth-walled houses
  • What IS the Greenhouse Effect?
  • Why build your own house, and how to do it: a speech
  • Does an old house need a dampcourse to be inserted?
  • Taking the grunt out of mixing mud
  • Creative roofing
  • Improving the thermal performance of a tiled roof
  • Build a timber slab wall
  • Earth walls in a tropical climate?

       Now, you are welcome to go to the new location of Mudsmith.net

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Bob Rich is also an editor and award-winning writer.
Visit his writing site.
And he offers counseling at his psychology site.

New

* NEW: This will affect you! Past cultures have been destroyed by climate change

   Read the transcript of my speech: Save Money -- Save the Future.

 

    Try your hand at a quiz.

   A mudsmith is a person who crafts useful objects from earth. And what could be more useful than a house? The term implies a craftsman rather than an artist, a worker in soil.

    I have been doing mudsmithing since 1979, writing about it since 1980 in a variety of magazines in Australia. In particular, EARTH GARDEN magazine has printed an article by me in almost every issue since. Want to READ one?

    In 1987, the then Editor of EARTH GARDEN, Keith Smith and I published our book: the EARTH GARDEN BUILDING BOOK.

To building book CONTENTS
To a SAMPLE from the book

It has been continuously in print since. The third edition was published in 1991, and is still going strong.

    In 1994 I published my second book, WOODWORKING FOR IDIOTS LIKE ME.

To woodworking book CONTENTS
To a SAMPLE from the book

    You can read REVIEWS of the two books.

    Since 1985, I have been teaching a course on building your own house, called the 'Affordable Mudbrick House', through HOLMESGLEN COLLEGE OF TAFE, which is in Melbourne, Australia. ['Do It Yourself Skills Training', Holmesglen College of TAFE, P. O. Box 42, Chadstone 3148; phone (03) 9564 1916.] For the last several years, I have also run a one-day course through this college, on 'Living With Solar Energy'.
    The solar course is held at the MOORA MOORA CO-OPERATIVE, near Healesville, Victoria, Australia, my home for 20 years. This is a place of beauty, where a small number of families are cooperating to care for nature. There are 25 owner-build houses, many with earth walls. Most of them are solar-efficient, with features like attached greenhouses. All have solar electricity.
    Moora Moora holds an Open Day, starting 1 pm, on the first Sunday of each month. We also hold a highly popular Festival on the last Saturday of every second February. The last one on Saturday, 26th February 2000 was a delightful and enjoyable day for our many visitors.

This site is on TheLIST, a Directory of Geocities websites.

   Before uploading a page I minimise its size with HTML Shrinker. This makes it load faster. Harry Heim, the author of this neat little program, has lots of good things on his web site.

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