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Rammed earth construction is the use of real earth as the main building material. Rammed earth construction normally involves using a particular blend of clay and soil, among other added materials which are compacted and allowed to heal and cure as per the wall’s shapes. While the main aim of sustainable building is to have an eco-building in terms of both energy efficiency as well as the cost of construction, using rammed earth to construct a building tends to be extremely costly due to the labor involved.

It is important to keep in mind that rammed construction is best for dry climates even though it can be used also in rainier climates. This kind of construction has been in existence since the times of ancient civilizations. The first time it was used was in dry desert areas where there was a short supply of lumbar and trees for construction, and worse still, trade at that time was very limited.

Notwithstanding the age-old history, rammed earth has gained much popularity in the recent past, as concerned citizens seek to use building materials from sustainable sources, and materials which have the least, if at all any, negative effect on the local environments. One of the biggest advantages of rammed earth used as an eco-building material is its ability to considerably reduce the consumption of energy in the buildings constructed using it, of course and the fact that it is a profuse and fully sustainable resource.

With that said, the main disadvantage of rammed earth as sustainable building materials, as mentioned above, is that it is very labor-intensive. In normal circumstances, creating walls using rammed earth entails filling up wooden frames with the right proportions of clay and soil, packing it down to circa half the original height, adding in more mixture, packing it down again, and the process continues until the desired height of wall is reached. Note that the exact materials used are not just the topsoil from the construction site either, it ought to have the right proportions of moisture, clay, gravel, and sand so that the optimum results can be reached.

The mixture will mostly have a stabilizer added to it where the stabilizer can be made using several materials, although some are considered not so sustainable building materials such as ordinary concrete. This is because the normal production of concrete emits pollutants to the environment. Once the mixture is compacted well, the wooden frames will be removed and the material left to dry under the sun for sometimes. Note that the outer walls of the building materials which are exposed have to be sealed so that the compacted mixture will not get damaged when water starts seeping via the material, as it is quite porous.

A great notable feature of rammed earth construction is its efficient property referred to as thermal mass. In simple words, this material is slow to get heat up in the course of the day while at night; it gets to retain the heat well.