1. Early Bird Planning Class for Adobe and Compressed Earth Block (CEB)
March 15 & 16, 2008
North Albuquerque, New Mexico CLASS FULL and completed

2. California Adobe and Compressed Earth Block
April 5 & 6, 2008
29 Palms, California CLASS FULL and completed

3. Country Adobe & Compressed Earth Block Class (with Hands-on)
May 3 & 4, 2008
Bosque, New Mexico CLASS Open

This class devotes Saturday to preparing Adobe and CEB earthen materials, using tools of the trade and working on real walls. Sunday is in class all day. Please note that Saturday’s class will go to 6:30 pm and Sunday's class to 4 pm*.The classroom portion will be held in the old Bosque store (adobe, circa 1935) and the outside portion at SWSA's field site, 2 miles away.

The nearest town with a plentiful choice of motels and restaurants is Belén, located 8 miles north on a paved highway. Belén is 32 miles south of Albuquerque on Interstate 25. Local directions, map and list of accommodations when you register. Weather in early May is warm with cool evenings. This is a rustic class in the rural countryside. Dust, wind, insects and heat may exist. Old clothes are best, along with hat, gloves, sunscreen, polarized sunglasses and good foot protection (no bare toes).

Safety will be stressed. You may 'brownbag' your lunch at the hands-on site if you prefer or drive into Belén for lunch. Coffee, water and cold fruit juice are free on-site each day. SWSA will provide tools and materials. You may wish to bring some of your soil for testing (two 5 gallon buckets). Bring your notebook and camera. SWSA may ask you to sign a work safety release before work begins.

*travel time from country site to Albuquerque airport is about 50 minutes.

Saturday May 3
8:00 am- 8:15 am - Coffee and fresh fruit at Bosque classroom. Class Orientation. Earthbuilders' Encyclopedia CD distributed along with some handouts. Construction plan for the day reviewed. Class proceeds to field site (5 minute drive**).

8:30 am - 12:30 pm - First Hands-on period. Show-and-tell tour of features around the site, while pointing out safety hazards. Review of both common and unusual tools used in Adobe and Pressed Block. Instructors will direct students in setting up scaffolds and leads, preparing mud mortar, and laying adobes and compressed earth block to the string. Breaks as needed. Aspects of wall construction as we go along- window and door rough bucks, passive solar rough bucks and their attachments, electrical circuits, in-wall reinforcement, cutting and shaping of blocks, and finish wall options. Count Rumford fireplace on site studied and handouts for it provided. Cold water and drinks provided.

12:30 pm -1:45 pm - Lunch break. Brown bag on site or drive to Belén.

1:45 pm - 4:45 pm - Second Hands-on period. Continue construction from morning period. Larry Elkins of Adobe International will visit and demonstrate one of his compressed earth block machines (bring a soil sample if you wish). Breaks will be called (shade on site) as Larry, Joe and students press different blocks with Cinva-Ram and Hydraulic Press. Learn how to build an arch and lay in an electrical circuit and boxes.

Work with “medieval” tools such as the adobe file, ‘the rake’, nail scraper, adobe spoon, barbed wire cutter, hatchet, the ‘groover’, speed leads and the ‘vampire stake’.

Clean up tools and wheelbarrows starting at 4:30 pm.

4:45 pm - 5:00 pm break

5:00 pm - 6:30 pm - Code requirements for Adobe, mud mortars and Compressed Earth Blocks. Compression, Modulus of Rupture, Stabilization using emulsions, Portland cement and lime. Practical tests and professional lab test standards. Easy to understand, but take good notes. This info is vital, so please understand that if you don't attend this evening class, you won't receive a Certificate of Completion on Sunday afternoon.

6:30 pm - class ends for day.

Sunday May 4
8:15 am - 11:30 am - In the classroom (Bosque store), Coffee and steps and Code and Construction review for Adobe and Compressed Earth Block Walls. Each student receives a code handout and Earthbuilders' Encyclopedia CD. We will view some slides and drawings to clarify main points. We want you to understand the basics for Foundations, Fireplace foundations, Walls, Lateral Support, Rough Bucks, Bond Beams, and Roof Framing. Please be prepared to take good notes. Illustrated handouts backup main construction points.

11:30 am - 12:45 pm Lunch Break

12:45 pm - 4:00 pm Passive Solar Design and Meeting Energy Codes.
We review the basics of what qualifies a structure as "passive solar" and how passing the energy code is easier because of it. Plans are handed out at this time for Passive Solaradobe 1576 and are used as a teaching tool. Learn Orientation, Overhangs, types of Passive Solar, south glass to heated floor space ratios, room arrangements that work, managing mass, Insulation, cooling tips and ideas on adapting particular architectural styles to passive solar arrangements. Emphasis on locations between 3500’ and 8000’ elevation where winters are cold. Architect Mark Chalom of Santa Fe and Joe Tibbets of SWSA teach this portion together.

4:00 pm - Certificates of Completion handed out. Class adjourns.

** if bad weather occurs on Saturday, we may switch hands-on day with classroom day.

Cost: $255 one person, $433 for two registering together (web site adds state tax to these figures).

Class capacity: 24 students

Class Handouts: Earthbuilders’ Encyclopedia CD, Solaradobe Plan 1576, various hard copy handouts.

This class will be held at the Edgewood Sandia Airpark where our host will start a passive solar rammed earth home in combination with an airplane hangar. Our job will be to start with a few rammed earth wall sections to include a rammed earth wall backing for a fireplace (see fireplace class). Most of this class will be outside, with an existing airplane hangar available next door should we need shelter. Edgewood weather in late May is typically warm days and cool nights, but it can be windy. Edgewood is 6400’ elevation and is located 23 miles east of Albuquerque on I-40.

There are plenty of motels in Edgewood and also Moriarty (a few miles east of Edgewood), so you won’t have to stay in Albuquerque (with rush hour traffic) if you are coming from outside the area. Local directions, map and list of nearby accommodations when you register.

Note: Our host will be looking for continued volunteer help with her rammed earth project through the summer, so if real practice is needed, this might work for you. However, you must learn enough about the tools and safety not to be a liability on the site.

The location is close to Huston Rammed Earth. Chandler Huston will work with us during class and we will tour one of his rammed earth homes. We will be working around machinery, such as tampers, compressors and mixers. SWSA may ask you to sign a work safety release before work begins.

Schedule

Saturday May 24
8:00 am - 9:30 am - Coffee, and initial handouts, including the New Mexico Rammed Earth Code, followed by a discussion of the soils, stabilization, tools and power equipment used and safety considerations. Students should bring gloves, hat, eye protection and sturdy shoes. Expect to get dirty. Wear older clothes. A camera and note-taking materials are essential. Water and cold fruit juices provided on site both days.

9:30 am - 11:30 am - Work begins on the actual project. Students will be setting up forms, placing ties, loading forms, ramming lifts, shoveling soil materials, and running a backfill tamper, powered by an air compressor. Safety is very important and if you can’t do the physical job, chances are you will be given a safety-related task, such as looking out for potential safety hazards or taking a few photos. Let’s see how many cubic feet of wall we can ram in this time period, working at a safe pace.

11:30 am - 12:45 pm - Lunch break Brown bag on site or drive to local restaurant.

12:45 pm - 4:00 pm - Hands-on continues with students learning about proper soil moisture, tamping inside the forms, proper lifts, electrical box installation, and electrical conduit in rammed earth. You will learn how to ram a nicho in a rammed earth wall, how to make a corner turn and about some of the form options and attachments on the open market.

4:00 pm - 4:15 pm - close down equipment, clean up tools, protect work from the weather.

4:15 pm - 5:00 pm - class groups for a review of the days work. questions answered. Rammed Earth Passive Solar Plan 1680 is handed out to all students.

5:00 pm - class over for the day.

Sunday May 25
8:00 am - 10:30 am - Coffee, followed by Passive Solar Design Notes with architect Mark Chalom. While rammed earth walls are generally thicker than adobe or compressed earth block, the same passive solar principles apply. We will discuss how their application is a bit different in rammed earth. Trombes, Direct Gain, Greenhouse, ratio of south glass to interior heated space, Overhang Design, Do’s and do-nots, Review of Plan 1680 for solar input, Insulation Schemes and much more.

10:30 am - 12:30 pm - Continue construction on walls from Saturday. Remove forms left up on Saturday to observe green, but finished rammed earth wall sections.

12:30 pm - 1:45 pm - Lunch Break- Brown bag on site or drive to local restaurant.

1:45 pm - 3:45 pm - Continue Hands-on

3:45 pm - 4:00 pm - Clean up site & tools, protect fresh work from weather.

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm - Q & A session, Certificates of Completion given out. Class ends. Students wishing to return for future practice may plan with host.

Cost: $272 single, $462 for two registering together (website adds tax to these figures).

Class capacity: 17 students

Class handouts: Earthbuilders’ Encyclopedia CD and various notes specific to rammed earth, along with Plan 1680.

5. Count Rumford Fireplace class (Hands-on and instruction with Jim Buckley)
May 31 & June 1, 2008
Edgewood, New Mexico

If you want to learn how to build a real masonry fireplace that puts out more heat than the ordinary fireplace, this class is for you. It centers on Jim Buckley, who is recognized as one of the leading fireplace masons in the U.S. Jim has devoted a large part of his career to research about Count Rumford fireplaces and their clean-burning characteristics.

Count Rumford, a native of New England during Colonial times, developed a fireplace box with a large radiant area. It featured coved sides, a straight back and a narrow, aerodynamic, Venturi throat that accelerated the hot airflow and burned up most of the pollutants. But Rumford, loyal to King George, left for England just before the revolution. Considered as disloyal by the Colonists, he was written out of U.S. history. As a result, his notes about a better fireplace were lost for 190 years. During those ensuing decades (1770-1960), hundreds of thousands of inefficient fireplaces were built in U.S. homes (and still are). But in the 1960’s, books by Vrest Orton of Vermont and fireplace work by Albert Avila of New Mexico, began to illuminate Rumford’s techniques. Jim Buckley continued the Rumford research and working with Superior Clay Corp. of Ohio, he designed ceramic components to build the Rumford fireplace in less time and with better airflow. Superior Clay is a national manufacturer of ceramic flue liners, chimney pots and other fireplace accessories. Buckley, of Port Townsend, Washington, has also been a pioneer in having Rumford technology included in building codes, beginning with the UBC 97 and including the new International Building Codes. Jim works locally with Builders’ Materials masonry supply in Albuquerque, from which the Superior Clay components for our class will come.

The class will be held at the Edgewood Sandia Airpark where our host has begun a rammed earth project. A rammed earth wall backing for the Count Rumford fireplace will be ready and the Rumford box will be built against it. As in the previous class, most of the class time will be outside. June 1 around Edgewood should be warm, with cool nights, but it can be windy. Edgewood is 6400’ elevation and is located 23 miles east of Albuquerque on I-40. There are plenty of motels in Edgewood and also Moriarty (a few miles east of Edgewood), so you won’t have to stay in Albuquerque and hassle with rush hour traffic if you are traveling from outside the area. Local directions, map and list of nearby accommodations when you register. Some machinery and rammed earthwork will probably accompany our fireplace work. SWSA may ask you to sign a work safety release before work begins.

Saturday May 31
8:00 am - 9:30 am - Coffee, and initial handouts from both SWSA and Superior Clay. Hat, eye protection, good shoes and gloves are essential. A camera and note pad will help you to remember the steps when you build your own.

9:30 am - 12:30 pm - Work begins on the actual project. Students will be working with firebrick, fireclay, brick chisel and hand sledge, Portland cement, lime, sands and other aggregates, steel rebar, tie wire and standard masonry tools along with medium-weight ceramic components. Rammed earth hand tools may be deployed around the fireplace, filling in voids using earthen materials. Expect to get dirty. Wear older clothes.

12:30 pm - 1:45 pm - Lunch break. Brown bag on site or drive to local restaurant.

1:45 pm - 4:00 pm - Hands-on continues

4:00 pm - 4:15 pm clean up tools, protect supplies and work from the weather.

4:15 pm - 5:00 pm class groups with Jim for a review of the days work. Questions answered.

5:00 pm class ends for day.

Sunday June 1
8:00 am - 9:30 am - Coffee, followed by Discussion of better fireplace placement in the home, placing fireplace mass inside, Kiva (or ‘beehive’ fireplaces) in Corners, Damper styles, Ash dumps, and other design considerations.

9:30 am - 12:00 pm - Continued fireplace construction from Saturday.

12:00 pm - 1:15 pm Lunch Break

1:15 pm - 3:45 pm Continue Fireplace Hands-on. We work our way up past the throat to placement of the smoke chamber components from Superior Clay.

3:45 pm - 4:30 pm - Clean up site & tools, cover work. Q & A session, Certificates of Completion given out. Class ends.

Cost: $255 one person, $433 for two registering together (web site adds state tax)

Class capacity: 17 students

Class Handouts: various Rumford and Superior Clay hard copy handouts including typical fireplace sections as required on drafted plans.