Rammed Earth Construction: John Novotny video

John Novotny, a Melbourne resident, has developed a very simple and innovative method of rammed earth construction that results in houses massively cheaper than conventional ones and with amazing environmental benefits. Now 82 and a convinced socialist (he recently joined the Socialist Alliance) he passionately wants to see this technique widely used to benefit ordinary people and contribute to a better world.




Novotny's approach begins to solve the major drawback with rammed earth/adobe building techniques -- that of the impact of weathering -- by ingeniously incorporating an embedded and fused cement jacket at the point of forming the walls.

This advance is nonetheless engineered by employing a very simple construction technique that is within the ability of most non professional builders to handle as Novotny's hardware makes both the ramming of the earth and sealing the walls a straightforward exercise which massively slashes building costs and energy (and carbon) inputs.

• See GLW :Industry spurns green building technique
• Large video format

Thanks to Keir Riley for the video file transfer

Label: Permaculture