TEG Newsletter - Issue #29
- ocs4243
- May 12
- 12 min read
Join us, Saturday, May 17, 2025! Our next Earthbuilders’ Guild tour will be in Mesilla, NM (Las Cruces area).
Pat Taylor, adobe preservationist and TEG Lifetime Member, will be our host. He has recently formed Querencia Mi Mesilla, a nonprofit established to “preserve and appreciate Mesilla's historic adobe structures, vibrant culture and community.” We will tour Pat Taylor's current projects. The Provencio House, an 1850/60s old adobe that is in “terrible shape.” It’s located just a couple of blocks from the Plaza. We will also see the Pemo Gamboa House, 1970s, which is two blocks away. If time allows, we will visit one more site. We will meet on the Mesilla Plaza and begin at 1:30.
An email RSVP is required to attend. This tour is free to TEG members, a pre-paid donation of $10 is requested of non-members (payment request will be sent via PayPal). Please email Pat Rutherford at theearthbuildersguild@gmail.com by May 13th to RSVP for this tour. For questions call Pat at 575-644-8099.
Come join us, connect with those who are passionate about earthen construction! Prior to the tour, the TEG Board will be meeting at 9:30 am. If you are interested in attending the board meeting, let us know and we will send you details. Attending by Zoom is an option by requesting in advance.
TEG Tour – March 2025 – Hosted by Albuquerque Joinery
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Albuquerque Joinery hosted TEG’s March 2025 tour, offering adobe enthusiasts an opportunity to view our build at the point at which the bond beam was completed, and some of the ceiling beams set. Two particular details stood out to folks at the tour– our highly customized gringo blocks, and the way we “float” the windows and doors to allow the adobe to settle. For anyone excited to get deep in the weeds on either of those details, we wrote up two posts on those topics in particular, available on our website here and here. Since the tour we’ve finished up beams and adobe blocking, prepped our concrete floor for finish (to happen much later), framed the portals and our handful of interior walls, decked the entire structure, and have begun roof framing. Compared to most modern construction, the beam and decking tradition in adobe construction is “backwards” in that the ceiling, insulation and all electrical, mechanical, and plumbing work goes before the roof. This does present a certain level of complication for a builder-- the sequencing of all this work is challenging to say the least. But it is the traditional way of doing it, and makes a whole lot of sense if one doesn't focus excessively on ease of construction. By doing this, it makes more sense to use beams and girders in our homes as actual structural elements, whereas in most frame houses nowadays these elements are added later by a trim carpenter to give their interior character. Since an adobe house often has very few sheetrock walls, we use a wood ceiling that continues that theme, and we get to build the ceiling without any overhead work at all. We use 1x8 rough sawn pine boards for this, drying them out in the sun for a few days before we sand and nail 'em up. Once the ceiling is on we have a nice flat surface to work on as we frame the parapets and pocket roof. Framing the parapets makes good sense, as there is already so much conventional lumber involved in framing the roof, but we always find ourselves wishing we were laying more adobes for the parapets. Esther Fredrickson and Kenny DeLapp, Albuquerque Joinery LLC, TEG board members
Newsletter Invite for Contributions
We want to hear your story! Do you have an earthbuilding story to share? Consider contributing to our quarterly newsletter. TEG welcomes any earthen news, achievement, anecdote, reflection, or personal story related to the fields of adobe, compressed earth block, rammed earth, or cob. Be sure to share your photos, as well! Email us for more info: theearthbuildersguild@gmail.com Pat Martinez Rutherford - TEG Board Member
Adobe in Action - Latest News Seventeen students are currently signed up for Adobe in Action's third online class of 2025 - History & Basics of Adobe Construction. After completing their adobe forms as part of their midterm projects two weeks ago, the students are now in the process of making some adobe test blocks which will serve as their final projects for this course. Adobe in Action is celebrating its 14th year of offering online classes in 2025. See the remaining Spring 2025 classes here. Catch the latest episode of our Mud Talks Podcast (Episode 32: Ben Loescher on the LA Fires & Rebuilding with Adobe) here. Kurt Gardella - TEG Board Member, Adobe in Action Executive Director & Instructor
SFCC Adobe Program - Latest News
The Santa Fe Community College Summer & Fall 2025 Adobe Construction class schedules have been released. Summer 2025 ADOB 1123 - Compressed Earth Block Construction Dates: 06/02-07/26/2025 (class meets in person June 21 and 22, July 12 and 13, 2025) Format: Blended (50% online + 50% field work) Instructors: Kurt Gardella & John Jordan ADOB 1190 - Adobe Building Practicum Dates: 06/02-07/26/2025 Format: Online + 40 hours of documented practicum field work Instructor: Kurt Gardella Fall 2025 ADOB 1111 - Adobe Construction Basics Dates: 08/18-10/11/2025 (class meets in person Sept. 20, Sept. 21, Sept. 27 and Sept. 28, 2025) Format: Blended (50% online + 50% field work) Instructors: Kurt Gardella & Issac Logsdon ADOB 1112 - Adobe Wall Construction Dates: 10/14-12/06/2025 (class meets in person Oct. 25, Oct. 26, Nov. 8 and Nov. 9, 2025) Format: Blended (50% online + 50% field work) Instructors: Kurt Gardella & Issac Logsdon ADOB 1113 - Passive Solar Adobe Design Dates: 10/14-12/06/2025 Format: Online Instructor: Kurt Gardella View the full Summer 2025 online schedule here: https://sfccssb.sfcc.edu/PROD/pw_pub_sched.p_listthislist?term_in=202510&subj_in=ADOB View the full Fall 2025 online schedule here: https://sfccssb.sfcc.edu/PROD/pw_pub_sched.p_listthislist?term_in=202520&subj_in=ADOB Full details the Adobe Construction Program at SFCC can be found at: https://www.sfcc.edu/programs/adobe-construction/ Kurt Gardella - TEG Board Member, SFCC Adobe Program Lead Adjunct Faculty
Earthen Legends TEG has begun a project of compiling bios/stories of those people who have contributed to our industry over the years. We are interested in receiving bios from anyone who can add to our library of knowledge in a salute to those who make up the history of earthen construction. Send your submissions to theearthbuildersguild@gmail.com. Criteria for submissions to Earthen Legends:
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Evolution of a Residential Design Concept The intent for this writeup is to demonstrate the evolution of a residential design concept within the construction and regulatory framework. As of this writing the project is still in the midst of stacking the earthen wall with the goal of completing this subtask by the end of summer. The residence is to be my parents retirement home with the aspiration that it will be a legacy home for subsequent generations within the family. CONTEXT The home is located in the very southern edge of New Mexico, in the bedroom community of Chaparral. With an elevation of 4,000-feet and located at the southern side of the Tularosa Basin, the summers are hot and winters are mild (and getting milder!). The property is of sufficient size that we did not take into consideration acknowledging the street frontage, so the cardinal directions were the primary guide. BLOCK-MAKING Five-miles to the west of the property is the Franklin Mountains within the path of a mountain runoff. As such there is a rich composition of alluvial material on-site such that external amending soil material did not need to be imported.  Fig. 1 - Soil Composition Test Results  Fig. 2 - Stabilized Block Test Results  Fig. 3 - Block Production  Fig. 4 - Block Stacking The New Mexico Earthen Building Code was a prevailing regulation the project abided by both in the composition of the individual blocks and the layout of the home. The walls are builts on a CMU/Concrete stem wall to save from having wood formwork, and raised to counter the 100-year flood. DESIGN The 1,700-sqft. floorplan layout is largely a simple rectangle that is intended to help facilitate first-time homeowner-build. Admittingly, there had been multiple design iterations, however, faced with the reality that the designer too would also be partaking in the actual act of staking adobe block under the hot summer sun, the layout was made simple for construction efficiency. As for the composition of the layout, it is divided into ‘Private’ and ‘Public’ areas; the eastern-third Public and the western two-thirds Private. Further subdividing the Thirds by a horizontal half we arrive at six sections, each largely dedicated to particular domestic function.
 Fig. 5 - Diagrammatic Layout  Fig. 6 - Floorplan
The Private area will have low ceilings (8-feet) and small windows, intended to augment the feelings of protection and comfort that are inherent to bedrooms and bathrooms. This private ‘inhale’ space is balanced with a larger ‘exhale’ space located on the eastern third, which will have high ceilings and an expansion of windows which could allow for cross ventilation.
 Fig. 7 - Section - Inhale  Fig. 8 - Section - Exhale Although the (future) homeowner-couple will be living alone, the other two bedrooms, in the West-Third will be used for infrequent guest rooms and/or storage. These two rooms will share a single HVAC system separate from the rest of the home, such that when the two rooms are not utilized it can be closed off and left unconditioned. These infrequently used spaces will act as a thermal buffer to the center of the home. Although the design is a three-bedroom house, it can easily be made into a single-bedroom with the omission of the left third section without needing to do much redesign. The project is a homeowner-build and as a registered architect the design and engineering was done in-house. Given this context the approach was to develop the drawings with just enough detail to satisfy the building code requirements to obtain a building permit with the State of New Mexico CID, as such, the drawings were intentional in lacking construction guidance and conveyed very little detailed design. For example, the millwork for the kitchen is covered by depicting it as simple rectangles on the floor plan and we did not provide any elevation details. The intent is to let the evolving act of construction by the builders and finances for a period of 2.5 years be the guide. This goes against the contemporary design process grain where design elements need to be throughout out on paper prior to picking up a hammer. However, by relocating the design decision-points to the construction phase, one is better in tune with solving issues as they arise since and not be hampered by constraints. In this age of litigation, this lockstep organic approach of continuing to design through the life of construction is largely only conducive to a homeowner-builder scenario. Once complete we hope to showcase this house as a demonstration home of building a contemporary earthen home within the Chihuahuan Desert. For any questions I can be contacted at 915.867.1180 (Louis Edwards) Louis Edwards - TEG Board Member
View from the Chair May 1, 2025 Greetings Fellow TEG members, I am now convinced that no number of deliberate attempts to come up with something interesting, relevant, and timely to write about can ensure success at this. Every time I start to write something, I am interrupted, or my mind wanders to the issues of the moment, or I simply start waxing philosophic, and I realize that it’s best to just start writing and see what develops. In this case, I am thinking about the challenges that my own CEB manufacturing operation is facing. Which are, I would hazard a guess, very similar to what many of you are dealing with in your own journey down the earthen pathway. The need for earthen construction materials is of the highest importance for our industry. Without these products, particularly the adobe and compressed earth blocks, the way forward is almost too challenging to see it survive. Yes, the earthen raw materials will still exist, and the use of this raw material will almost certainly continue in all manners that it does today, but the probable outcome of no adobes or CEBs on a commercial level would be that slowly and inexorably the earthen construction trades like the adoberos, the earthen block layers, the viga manufacturers, and others that are crucial to the health of our industry would wither away and even cease to exist. What a sad and inglorious day that would be! We must not let that happen, but can we actually do something about it? One of the ways that we can do something is to preserve and make available the wealth of captured information about how and why to use earthen materials as a construction product. The abundance of written materials, and there is a pretty significant amount of it, is not guaranteed to continue to be available for those who are interested in the work, experience, and knowledge of the earthen practitioners in our near past. That is why the work being done by our TEG Board member Josh Montoya is so very valuable. Josh is working with Joe Tibbetts to gain access to Joe’s lifetime work of magazines, put together and edited by Joe, which were dedicated to capturing so many aspects of the adobe, CEB, rammed earth, and even cob construction methods and techniques. With this access, and with Joe’s permission, these extraordinarily valuable works are being scanned and saved in electronic format, making them timelessly available and accessible for future generations of earthen folk. This is going to prove to be absolutely invaluable since it will allow much wider distribution of this material than could otherwise be done with the hard copy material. Another way that we can help is to formally educate and train those who are wanting to become proficient in the earthen construction arts. In years past, the only way to learn these arts was to find a way to be around someone who already knew what, how, and why to use earthen materials for construction. This was not easy since most of these experienced people had a business to manage or were in another part of the country (or world!), making it nearly impossible to be around them enough so that they could pass along this experience and knowledge. Well, we now have dedicated college courses, like those being taught at Santa Fe Community College by our very own TEG Board members Kurt Gardella and Ernesto Aragon. We also had the beginnings of this effort carried out by our past Board member Quentin Wilson who taught at Northern New Mexico College in El Rito, NM. This type of education is critical for spreading the earthen construction information and methods across the years and across new generations of earthen practitioners. Yet another way that we can help is to get actively involved in organizations like TEG, or the Earthen Construction Initiative (ECI) in Texas, or the Cob Research Institute in California, to name a few. These organizations exist to further the earthen construction industry, and one of the primary ways they do it is to form connections between people who are members so that they can share information, so that they can support each other in their activities, and so that they have the sure knowledge that others are as interested and passionate about earthen as they are themselves. And, when all is said and done, there is also the action that many of us take, which is to be part of a business that is involved in the earthen industry. Which brings me back to the challenges that my own business is facing. I can’t recall how many people I have talked to about my (and my business partner Jim Moore) company which is focused on manufacturing CEBs. What I do recall is that so many of them are supportive and interested in what we are trying to achieve, and willing to offer help, from offering advice to offering materials to giving me useful contact information for others who may be able to assist us. The challenges that our business faces is pretty standard, but what is not standard is the means of production of the CEBs, which utilize specialty equipment such as a powered block press and a powered blender (the machine that mixes and hydrates the soil immediately before going into the block press) as well as, in our case, equipment that prepares the raw materials to go into the blender. All of these pieces of equipment must be up and running during our block making operations, a feat that is both challenging and, at times, exhilarating! To have raw materials go into one end of this operation and have spectacular CEBs come out the other end can be the epitome of manufacturing. On the other hand, having to adjust or repair any one piece of these machines can cause downtime, which costs money and opportunity time, and it leads to frustration and jaw-clenching. Persevering in making the machines, and therefore the manufacturing operations, work correctly is perhaps the most gratifying help that us makers can provide to the industry. I challenge more of you to jump into the maker ranks if possible, since this may be one of the most beneficial ways that you can help the earthen industry. Well, enough of the waxing philosophic! I welcome any and all thoughts that you all would like to share with me and the rest of the TEG folks who read these newsletters. Send me what you think would be good to share and I will do my best to get it out there among the other earthen folks. With highest regard and thanks, John Jordan - TEG Board Chair (chair@theearthbuildersguild.com) |
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