Building with earth - Gernot MINKE (1)

3.3
3.2
3.1 Mixing unit used
at the BRL, Kassel
3.2 Garden cultivator
3.3 Forced mixer
3.4 Mortar mixer
with rollers
3.5 Forced mixer
with loading device
3.6 Forced loam
mixer (Heuser)
3.7 Electrical hand
mixer
3.8 Electrical crusher
3.5 3.4
al power. With an adequate addition of
water, one cubic metre of usable loam
could be produced in about 15 minutes
(with the help of two or three people, mainly
to scoop the overflowing mud back into
the track). If a tractor is available, it is easy
and more effective to simply spread earth
on a field and drive back and forth over it.
For small quantities, a small garden cultivator
is very useful (3.2). In modern earth construction
technology, forced mixers are used.
Here, the mixing is done with the help of
revolving arms that are fixed either to a vertical
(3.3) or horizontal axis (3.6). It is convenient
to have a mechanical device for filling
this mixer, as seen in 3.5.
Old mortar mixing machines can also be
used, like ones that have rotating rollers
(3.4). The machine in 3.6 was specially
developed for preparing loam from any kind
of soil (by the German firm Heuser).
A quicker method of preparing a loam from
dry clods of clayey soil is to crush them in
3.6
3.8
3.7
37
Preparing of loam