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What is Adobe? |
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Q: What does ADOBE means or stand for? A: Adobe soil has clay and sand in such proportions that when mixed into mud then dried out it forms a brick or a wall.An adobe brick is made of adobe soil and is sun cured on the ground. Adobe mortar may have more clay than plaster, floors or bricks. It sticks adobe bricks together to create a wall. Adobe plaster is that which uses clay as the primary binder. An adobe floor may be made of adobe bricks laid flat on a dirt, sand, or gravel base. Joints may be filled with adobe mortar, cement grout, sand or nothing. Adobe floors are more often made by pouring adobe mud over the base in one thick or several thin layers to give a monolithic floor somewhat like concrete. An Adobe home is made of adobe bricks or monolithic adobe walls. Adobe stands forever if it has a good foundation and a good roof and has occupants who give it a bit of periodic maintenance. Q: Could you help me find some adobe soil. I am trying to build an adobe oven for pizzas, bread, meats, etc. I am having a hard time finding the adobe soil. I live in southeastern North Carolina. A: Take a large tin cup and drive to NM border. Knock on any door and ask for a bit of adobe dirt. Everyone is in the Christmas spirit so you won't be refused. Q: My partner and I are soon to build a house and we would like to know about the advantages of building our home out of adobe instead of brick. A: In some cases, it can depend upon your location. Adobe bricks can be made most anywhere on the planet by the people willing to do the work (or pay someone else to do the work.) With a good foundation and a good roof adobe lasts at least as longs as wood walls which rot, steel walls which rust, straw walls which mildew and brick walls which eventually loose their mortar. The adobe bricks can be made from your own dirt on your own site, they are dried by solar energy and the other energy input is from human metabolism. That is so green and so autochthonous as to be that which there is none greater. You can read a book, take a class or talk to someone and within 20 minutes you will be as good an adobe mason as a professional. There are only seven parts to an adobe house so the learning curve is not steep: Foundation, wall, brick, mortar, lintel, bond beam, roof beam or viga or joist, insulation and roofing material. Adobe bricks are heavy. The construction of a wall is brutal. Well organized with a couple of friends, the walls are up in 3-1/2 days. Not so well organized and they will be up in 3 weeks. Nine months When you are done, the tougher the job, the more you have to look back on.
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Quentin
Wilson and
Associates, specializes in solar adobe design and construction. He grew
up in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico where he watched adobe
bricks being made. In the fifth grade, he made miniature adobes on cookie
sheets in his mother’s oven in order to construct house models for
a class assignment. By age thirteen he made full-sized adobes in the back
yard and ruined the grass. Later, he traveled a bit, went through the
Army, and graduated eventually from the University of New Mexico with
a major in physics, minors in math, chemistry, and education in 1970.
After teaching high school two years and community college math for three
more, Quentin moved into professional solar adobe construction in 1976
as the Project Manager and Instructor for the Sundwellings Demonstration
Project at Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM. He became a licensed general contractor
in the State of New Mexico in 1982. He has been building homes and teaching
seminars and workshops ever since. In the fall of 1995 he established
and taught the full-time Adobe Construction Program at Northern New Mexico
Community College. His website, 
