Week 5 : The launch of CSEB making

So, yeah, this week saw the start of the production of our CSEB - Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks, also called "SSB" for Stabilized Soil bricks, or BTC in French, for Blocs de Terre Comprimée (manque un S pour stabilisée mais bref). 

They are much more eco-friendly than the fired bricks (using a looot of wood to get cooked) or concrete (using a loooot of (imported) cement), as these blocks should count only 5% of cement for the stabilization, and don't need any plaster or paint or any other layer on them at the end to be confortable and beautiful.

So some soil has already been extracted and sieved, and kinda analyzed ( a bit too roughly unfortunately), we had a bag of cement ready, some water nearby, a large area for the curing was prepared, the machine was assembled and we were ready to start testing !

We made our first blocks on Monday afternoon, guiding the guys for the dry mixing, the wet mixing, the steps for the compression, the handling on the blocks. We had to adjust the press several times, and it took some time to get the right amount of water in the mix, but all in all we managed to make our first 25 blocks :)

Freshly made 240 x 240 x 90 mm soil block :)

After this first afternoon, we decided we should test some other mix, adding a bit of gravel and a bit of sand. Problem is, we'll only know after the 28 days of curing how that is...

Getting the right mix isn't all experimentation on-site...

 

Meanwhile, I still had to work on the developed designs of the family cottages, to send them to our structural engineer so he can design the foundations and we can proceed to their marking and start next week - hopefully. 

These designs are a change in the program so it took a bit longer to get them... Plus the developed drawings have to boast some attractive layout of the CSEB blocks which will be visible - as the fact that they don't need plaster counts for a big part in their price competitivity.

That's it for this week ! I'll still work a bit over the weekend on the dormitory plan to get it at the same refinement level as the family cottages, as these buislings have to be built at the same time - the target is to have all them 4 roofed by beginning of December. Tick, tock.