Compressed Earth Blocks for Residential Walls
Last Updated: Mar 17, 2025Does the idea of a homemade house made of earth make you think of poverty and misfortune? The image of one-room mud huts and dirt structures are hastily thrown together is a far cry from the comfortable, modern-day homes that we have come to expect. On a worldwide scale, around 30 percent of the world’s population uses the earth as a construction material for their homes. For many of these people, homes made from the dirt beneath their feet is the only economically feasible option to build a shelter for their family. But even if you can afford more, it’s worth noting that earthen construction methods offer several important sustainability benefits.
Compressed earth blocks (CEB) is a unique earthen construction technique that combines the sustainability benefits of using dirt for our homes' walls while significantly improving the aesthetics and structural integrity and strength of earthen structures. This low-cost sustainable building alternative allows homeowners to build beautiful earthen walls from local soils and clays that contribute to a heat-regulating and moisture resistant home. Homes made from compressed earth blocks prove that sustainability does not mean a sacrifice in comfort and beauty.
Table of Contents
- What are Compressed Earth Blocks?
- Sustainability Advantages of Compressed Earth Blocks
- Examples of Compressed Earth Blocks in Sustainable Constructions Projects
What are Compressed Earth Blocks?
Compressed Earth Blocks are innovative, natural, and sustainable construction material. Whereas most vernacular, earthen building techniques are artisanal in nature, these blocks are a manufactured construction material that radically increases the strength, performance, and durability of traditional earthen structures. The compressed earthen blocks combine on-site soils, non-expansive clays, and aggregate (usually lime or Portland cement) to stabilize. The proportion of soil and clay is dependent on the type of dirt that can be found on-site, but a mixture of 75 percent sandy soil and 25 percent of clay soil is ideal, as it will reduce shrinkage that can lead to cracking. A percentage of 4 to 8 percent of Portland cement is added to stabilize the mix, aid in the drying process, and offer moisture resistance.
Once the basic materials are mixed, they are placed in a mechanical press to be taken to the building site. With a small work team, all of the earthen blocks can be made within a two to three day period. Once manufactured from the mechanical press, the blocks are left to dry for anywhere between 7 and 28 days before being ready to use. After one month of drying, the compressed earth blocks are completely water-resistant and can be used like regular bricks or cinder blocks for wall construction. Compressed earth blocks can be combined with concrete and rebar columns for added seismic resistance in seismic areas.
Sustainability Advantages of Compressed Earth Blocks
1. Low Embodied Energy
The embodied energy footprint of the homes that we live in is the total combined energy consumed by all of the processes that make up a building's production. This energy includes the mining and processing of natural resources, manufacturing the basic materials used for home construction, transportation of those products to the building site, and the energy used to construct the building. While most sustainable builders and architects focus on the operational efficiency of the home as one of the main tenets of home sustainability, the embodied energy footprint also needs to be taken into context, as operational efficiency gains can actually be canceled out due to an increased embodied energy footprint that comes with new home construction. For this reason, many sustainability experts find that renovating an older home is often more environmentally friendly than building a more energy-efficient new home.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.