Roberto
Guest
Isn't caliche clay? That's what they call it in New Mexico adobe making anyway.
Adobe Ovens built to order
- Thread starter jerry
- Start date
Kenny
Guest
Oh man I can remember having to dig the caliche mud out from wheel wells etc when I was over there,. There were times when hunks would drop off and make hazardous road bumps after it hardened. That stuff would stick like glue to just about anything when wet, but slimy to drive on like a wet clay race track after the water truck dumps water on it.
Esperanza
Guest
It may be a type of clay, but the caliche we've come up with at Lopez is not good for adobes. It's loaded with sand and shells. We've talked with the guys at Aleman's, even they say the dirt is not good for adobes so they have it delivered from somewhere else to make the adobes they sell. They have nice adobes, we just prefer to make our own at our own pace and hopefully at a savings.
Raf's family home in Chihuahua is about 100 yrs old and made of adobes. He made many repairs and additions to the home as well as building his own adobe home. Like the "Pizza Snob", I guess Raf is an "Adobe Snob"....:lol:
I'm sure we'll find some way to make it work.
I think if you used caliche to build the blocks the house walls may melt when (if) it rains. The caliche roads are a complete mess when it rains. A friend and I hauled 3 vans filled with teenage Chinese kids out of the mess once with quads. They all were fancy dressed and even the parents had suits and dresses on. They all were stuck in the middle of the road. Someone came and pulled the vans out with a tractor.
Roberto
Guest
Adobe walls will wash away with water flow. If the water cannot pool on the adobes they remain intact. Often the walls are two adobes thick. They are plastered with mud or cementaceous plaster. I owned a building that was made of Terrones, which are mud bricks that are chopped out of the caliche layer. The roots of weeds were still in the terrones.
An intact roof is extremely important. There is an old church, well maintained and used, where I lived in NM and we replastered it every two years or so with fresh mud. Was a community effort. The mud plastered pueblo buildings in NM have lasted hundreds of years with mud plaster, some are multi storied. The roofs are formed with a layer of calechi and maybe some straw or brush.
An intact roof is extremely important. There is an old church, well maintained and used, where I lived in NM and we replastered it every two years or so with fresh mud. Was a community effort. The mud plastered pueblo buildings in NM have lasted hundreds of years with mud plaster, some are multi storied. The roofs are formed with a layer of calechi and maybe some straw or brush.
Kenny
Guest
It broke my heat, but we bulldozed a well over a 100 year old adobe on Candelaria Rd in Albuquerque that was built that way to put in Harolds Auto body and paint shop. We thought it had a low ceiling, but it actually had been much higher before they put in two more layers of floor. The contacter Larry Lewis wanted us to pull down a Cottonwood that was much older than the house with his front loader, but we refused to do it.
