Longtime reader Rachel told me about an opportunity to learn earthbag construction from an expert. Her family is building an earthbag house in Gainesville and YOU are invited to learn right along with them. I asked Rachel if she could send some pictures and a write-up so I could post details here. She shared the following. This is a great opportunity to learn, work and meet cool people while helping a family build their home and expand the building possibilities allowed by Alachua county. Don’t miss it! -DTG

Earthbag Construction Workshop in Gainesville – You are Invited!

My family is embarking on the adventure of building our dream home, just north of Gainesville, Florida.

After years of research and planning, we decided to build using earthbag construction, and despite the extra hurdles it will place in our way, to have the home be fully permitted and up to code.

In our area, that is no minor thing.

We’ve gotten the plans engineered to Florida standards, and after some back-and-forth, gotten the plans approved by the county.

Our county has never permitted an earthbag project, and is eager to see the result, and we want to show them that not only can it create a beautiful home, but that it is structurally sound, environmentally friendly, and natural disaster resistant.

We chose these plans, designed by Owen Geiger:

Here’s the thing though… we’ve never built with earthbags. We’re eager to learn though, and have found an ‘earthbag expert’ that is willing to come and teach us.

Morgan Caraway

Morgan Caraway, of bottomleaf.org, has built a number of earthbag projects, including an earthbag earthship, and an earthbag roundhouse.

He regularly hosts workshops to teach earthbag construction and provide hands-on learning experience for those that are interested in this exciting construction method.

We’d like to open up this opportunity to others that want to learn with us!

Morgan will be on our farm from October 22-29.

Ideally, we would like the attendees to be fairly local people who can learn from Morgan during the workshop, and then put the knowledge to use to help us with the rest of the build.

If we can get some kind of assurance that you’ll help after the workshop is over, the workshop will be free.

If you would just like to come to the workshop with no obligation to help later, then there will be a charge to attend.

I’ve set up a website at upfulearthbag.com, where you can see the progress we’ve made so far and find out more about the workshop.

We also have an event page on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/623748014452294/

If you have any questions about the workshop, or our project, I’d love to talk to others that are excited about earthbag construction!

-Rachel