Where you live. And it’s not just about what household chemicals you use, what products you buy or whether you sort your waste. And actually about the construction of your house. If you are the happy owner of a plot of land and a small starting capital, you can build truly ecological housing, using ancient and traditional technologies for Ukraine, which will not be inferior in any way modern projects. It's about about the adobe house.
First of all, let us explain what adobe is - it is a building material. wall material in the form of unfired bricks made from a mixture of clay, sand and straw (sometimes other ingredients). If speak about construction characteristics, then the compression limit of adobe brick (in dried form) ranges from 10 to 50 kgf/cm2 and is similar in strength to aerated and foam concrete grade 600 (tensile strength 25-40 kgf/cm2).
Although this technology is considered more indigenous to Asian countries, South America and the Caucasus, it is also quite common in Central, Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Ukrainian traditional mud huts were built from adobe. Houses and auxiliary structures are still being built from adobe. Some of them have been preserved in in excellent shape not only in museums, but are also still used in villages. And the grandchildren of those who built them live in them.
The advantages of building with adobe include:
The disadvantages include the fact that adobe absorbs moisture very well, so during construction, great attention must be paid to waterproofing both the foundation and walls.
Another benefit of building this way is that you are less constrained by shape than with traditional construction. Your home can have both classic outlines and unusual shapes- round walls, a domed roof, a recess into a hill - with clay you can practically limit your imagination.
It is clear that it is impossible to outline all the nuances of building a house from adobe in this article. In the end, when building any house, you will still need expert advice, so we will focus on how to make adobe bricks with your own hands and note only some of the main stages of this type of “green” construction.
In order to make a brick from adobe, first of all, we need clay (oily or medium fat content), sand (coarse-grained, not sea), water, plant residues (the most common option is chopped straw 6-10 cm long) . You can also add expanded clay, cement and sawdust to the clay. If desired, you can add various aseptic additives to the mixture. For fire safety can be added flame retardant additives.
If you use clay that is too oily for the production of adobe blocks, they will crack, and if it is not oily enough, the mixture will not adhere well, crumble, and the strength of the block will suffer. To determine the fat content of clay, you should consult with specialists. But there are also traditional methods its definitions. Here are examples of the two simplest ones:
Method 1
From the selected clay we form a ball the size of egg. We place it between two planed boards (plywood) and squeeze the ball, pressing it with the top board:
a ball of low-fat clay will immediately fall apart;
a ball of medium-fat clay will fall apart when the distance between the boards is reduced by about a third;
a ball of oily clay cracks when the distance between the boards reaches halfway.
Method 2
Dilute a small amount of clay with water to the consistency of sour cream. Take dry and smooth wooden stick. Stir the clay solution with a stick. Based on the amount of clay that sticks to the stick, its fat content is determined:
Oily clay - 3 mm or more;
Average clay - 1-3 mm;
Let's get to work. We dig out the pit and cover its bottom with film. We lay a layer of clay 10-30 cm thick on this bedding, fill it with water and leave it overnight. The next day, add sand, knead, and then add pre-moistened filler. Leave the mixture for 2 days, add more liquid if necessary. You can mix the ingredients with a shovel or stick, and knead comfortably with your feet.
We make a mold and make a brick. The mold can hold any number of brick slots at once, but keep in mind that you will need to lift it and turn it over along with the folded brick. Therefore, usually for one person they make a form with 2 cells, for two - with 4-6.
Pre-moisten the mold with water and sprinkle with chopped straw or sawdust. Bricks can be made in almost any desired size and shape, but a typical parallelepiped shape is the size shown below. The mold for making bricks must allow for drying shrinkage of approximately 8%.
Brick dimensions, cm Mold dimensions taking into account shrinkage
40x19x13 43x20, 5x14
36x17x13 39x18, 5x14
30x14x10 32.5 x15x11
Bricks are dried under open air 2-3 days, then the brick is placed on edge and dried for about another week. Then adobe blocks stored, for example, in a barn (it is important to protect them from moisture) and kept for about another week or until construction begins.
Work should begin in the spring, then you have a chance to not only make a brick, but also build a house during the season. In 1 day of work, 3-4 people will be able to make 150-200 bricks.
If the adobe brick was made correctly, then:
Now that you have the required number of bricks for your house, you can begin its construction. As we noted, a house made of adobe can be built according to a variety of projects, and therefore we will not dwell in detail on the construction process itself, we will only note some of the nuances of constructing structures from adobe brick:
The foundation of an adobe building must be very well waterproofed.
It is worth placing visors over the windows to prevent drooling. rainwater. Window sills are also waterproofed and protected by tides. Entrance thresholds houses are also carefully waterproofed.
The corners and joints of the walls are reinforced with reinforcing mesh.
Beams and floors are arranged with load redistribution over the entire wall to avoid point loads.
External walls can be plastered and whitewashed ( traditional version) or overlay in red or sand-lime brick, ceramic or cement tiles. Taxation should begin after the house shrinks. Preferably six months to a year after the construction of the house.
The selection of these houses is especially close to my heart, since it was collected in Podolia, my small homeland. I spent my early childhood in one of these huts and I have very warm memories associated with them. Vinnytsia artist Vladimir Kozyuk collected this photo collection for 13 years, for which he is deeply grateful. 
Vladimir photographed his first hut under a thatched roof back in 1996, completely unconsciously. And over the course of several years, the artist simply began to dream about these houses. After such dreams, he got up and drew what he saw. In 2004, he bought a digital camera and began purposefully searching for and photographing all the mud huts that still remained.
Today, many of these houses no longer exist, but there are photos and paintings. They are kept in many museums in Ukraine. The author connected the lives of its residents with each of these houses. 
With. Posokhov, Murovano-Kurilovetsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine 2005.
This adobe house under the straw, together with the grandmother, became the calling card of the Holodomor project; a huge banner hung in the center of Kyiv. It is noteworthy that the house is simply plastered with clay and there is no white limestone plaster.
When it was photographed, this mud hut was more than 300 years old. This is one of two oldest houses in Ukraine. A striking example of the reliability of adobe frame structures. Mazanka was with wooden log house on a stone foundation. The log house there has already turned to stone. Now this house no longer exists. The top of it rotted, it was flooded with rain and the house collapsed.
With. Yakimovka, Oratovsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine 2004. The house of Mikola's grandfather.
This mud hut was still about a hundred years old. This is not a staged photo. Grandfather was just chopping wood when he raised his head. He asked: “How much do I owe you for taking my picture?”
Here it is worth noting that the walls are tightly covered on all sides with brushwood, this protects it from moisture and dampness.
With. Verbovets, Murovano-Kurilovetsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine April 22, 2005. Baba Nadya's hut.
This is very beautiful house, where people still live today with a stable and a cellar, all under straw.
Teplitsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 2006
The grandmother-philosopher lives here.
“They considered her strange in the village, but for me she was quite normal. She posed for me for a photo. She talked about the deputies: “they are greedy, they offend people. That’s why they get diabetes and cancer, and then they waste money on treatment. But I live in my own house, I don’t offend anyone and I feel good.” She covered her house with sheaves herself. What kind of ingenious equipment did she come up with so that these sheaves, with the help of a rope and a lever, flew out onto the roof themselves? She then got out and tied them. She still had a bunch of sheaves in her garden. It would be enough for two more houses,” says Vladimir.
With. Ruban Nemirovsky district, 2009. Baba Marta's hut
“My wife’s grandmother lived in this village, and that’s how I found this house. Grandma Martha was so tiny. And the barn in the yard is just as small and the entrance doors are just as small. She told me that this year, while I was visiting her, neighbors broke into her house. The cereal was taken away. And she crawled under the bed so that she wouldn’t be beaten,” recalls Vladimir.
With. Naddnestrianskoye, Murovano-Kurilovetsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine
One of the best mud huts: whitewashed, lined with sheaves. The hut consists of two halves. The grandmother in the photo lived in one with her grandfather. And the other half was a barn. There lived a dog.
With. Kotyuzhintsy, Kalinovsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine 2004
All walls are tightly covered from snow and moisture with sheaves of corn. 
With. Deresheva, Murovano-Kurilovetsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine 2004. 
With. Chernyatyntsi, Kalinovsky district, Vinnitsa, Ukraine 2010. 
With. Vivsyanyky, Kozyatinsky district
The house is on a hill and is well heated by the sun. 
With. Dzyunkiv, Pogrebischensky district, 2006 
With. Chesnovka, Khmelnitsky district, 1998. Baba Vaska's hut
With. Zhabelovka, Vinnytsia district, 2008.
The last mud hut under a thatched roof in Vinnytsia region 
With. Verbovets, Murovano-Kurilovetsky district
The wide extended foundation is clearly visible in order to protect the house from freezing.
You can view the entire selection on Vladimir Koziuck’s website
Now many technologies: clay plasters, roofs made of reeds and thatch, frame houses- come to us from the West under the guise of very expensive and fashionable trends that only the wealthiest people can afford.
But these construction technologies have been used in our country for many centuries, and let this selection of simple rural mud huts be confirmation that such houses can last and last for a long time. Let's revive the construction of houses from local materials while they still exist, and not buy technological innovations brought far away, which, by and large, were taken from us.
This article is about traditional hatah middle zone, a little about their construction technologies, why they are in poor condition today. We continue the series of articles “Good DIY house" In the future, articles such as “Traditional Frames” will be published, in which we will talk about English oak, German half-timbered frames, and Japanese frames. We think, in general terms, in the article “World experience of folk construction using clay,” we will talk about how they built in the world where adobe is known and how it was used.
Let's look at the period of the last 50-60 years. The Great War ended in 1945 Patriotic War. People were returning to normal life.
There were no villages as such; houses were destroyed and burned. It was necessary to quickly solve the housing problem. They built quickly and from what was underfoot and in sight.
There were several options for houses and technologies inherited from parents: adobe block hut, adobe-cast ( adobe) And hut(there are actually many types of huts). Let me remind you that we are considering the steppe and forest-steppe, where clay is abundant, and scaffolding not much or not at all.
If a hut was built on the site of an old one that had burned down, then the removed clay was sorted into suitable and unsuitable (one that contained a lot of wood chips or that was baked from the fire was considered unsuitable).
First method - adobe blocks.
Why the blocks and how did this happen? There are two approaches here. First: old unusable adobe hut with strong walls, for one reason or another, they were sawn into transportable blocks. They sawed with a string saw made of barbed wire with handles. After the material was prepared, laying began with clay mortar.
The second option was to make new blocks. In the immediate post-war period, it was not very popular, since this method presupposed the presence of a place where one could survive a season or two. During the first construction season, the family worked on making blocks. It was necessary to extract clay (to do this, dig a well and a cellar, or extract it from a quarry located near the village). It is worth noting that clay better properties, if it is frozen (perhaps it was stored on the site for the winter). Then the clay was mixed with straw or hay (sometimes wood chips), but more often with chaff (waste from milking grain) and the blocks were formed. They dried, then they were stored for the winter. The blocks were stacked and protected from the rain.
On the territory of Ukraine, until the collapse of the USSR, rural factories producing adobe. Now there are only a few such factories, their products continue to be in demand among villagers.
This technology is characterized by convenient and fast construction; it was very easy to work at heights without serious scaffolding. Walls were quickly erected using clay mortar blocks. But often the villagers forgot to bandage the seams or made the walls too thin, which is why such houses easily fell apart into “cubes” over time. But at the same time, the walls could turn into a monolith, which is very difficult to disassemble or destroy. Perhaps there was a technology for quick masonry, when the blocks dried for a week (set) and went into the walls. (The authors’ assumption)
Another method of construction was adobe. To this day, such huts are highly valued. Their walls are durable and require minimal maintenance. Clay casting technology requires Strong arms, legs and hardy hooves. The clay was soaked and kneaded next to the future house. They dug one or several holes in which there was a clay-sand mixture. Kneading could be carried out with the help of horses, oxen (but the animal is not bad and always strives to get away), using a wheel from a cart or tractor, or a specially made one. Again, using the help of the legs of relatives and friends (Toloka) was common.
It must be said that, in fact, there is a nuanced division between adobe and adobe. How are they different? Claystone is a technology for laying plastic clay into formwork that already contains straw. Claybite- this is a mixture of clay and straw with less water, also placed in formwork. In both cases, the mixture is thoroughly compacted.
Hut was erected on the principle of climbing formwork. This process was quite difficult and lengthy. It was necessary to prepare the mixture, install the formwork, lay the mixture with layer-by-layer compaction, wait for the structural strength to gain, after which the formwork was removed, the scaffolding was installed, and everything happened again. The pouring height at a time is 300-400mm. Up to 20 people, or even more, could work on one house at the same time.
It is difficult to say how quickly the house was built. Construction is both convenient and problematic. It was difficult to serve the mixture to a height higher than human height. With this technology, it was necessary to follow a number of rules for arranging dressings. Let us repeat, houses using this technology are very durable and least susceptible to the influence of time (if everything is done wisely).
Mazanka. There is so much talk about this technology, but few people have thought about what it is. Often, when they want to make an attack on Ukrainian traditional housing, they mention exactly “ mud hut». Mazanka- this is the warmest hut of all the huts that are built from clay. It is the fastest in construction, but no less labor-intensive. In Europe, huts have been known since before the Middle Ages. This technology is used by the British, known as English oak frame filled with clay and straw, by the Germans and French, known as half-timbering, even in Italy and Spain, outbuildings are made using this technology. And about the neighbor and Far East, the author modestly keeps silent about buildings in Africa, India, China, because mud huts are still being built there today. So, hut- this is a wooden frame, usually made of white acacia (in Ukraine), filled with clay.
If in adobe And adobe blocks the foundation was more of an accident, then stones or burnt tree trunks could be placed under the main supports, or they could simply dig in supports. The cross members of the frame were branches of felled acacia; it must be said that they fit into slotted holes in the racks; the frame was without nails. When they chopped a big tree, then one trunk with a diameter of 300-400 mm was split into 2 or 4 parts and used as supports at angles. If younger trees were used, then trunks from 100 to 200 mm were used for supports. Then branches were woven into the crossbars to create a kind of “basket.” After all these simple operations, the frame was smeared. A clay-straw mixture was used, the amount of straw ranged from 10 to 70% by weight. It is possible that there were cases when the frame could first be covered, and then the walls were finished, which makes the construction process more convenient, but requires more skilled work on the frame. The advantage of adobe is that it dries much faster than ordinary adobe; it uses less adobe, which makes construction easier. In more northern versions, a log house was made from logs with a diameter of 150-200 mm, and then coated with kaolin clay. This method simultaneously solved the problem of caulking the seams and imparted a traditional white color.
In this article, we will not consider in detail the technologies for adding organic binders, stabilizers, and hardeners. Let’s dispel a little the myth about using dung, or rather horse manure. Horse manure was used as shredded fiber to “iron” the walls in the final stages of finishing. To reinforce the clay mixture in the southern regions, the descendants of nomads could use manure instead of straw, since it is still more profitable to give hay and straw to livestock first. And grains were not grown much in these regions. IN adobe mixtures they could add whey, blood, dung - to improve the properties of adobe. They not only increased the strength of adobe, but also increased its moisture resistance and durability.
We allow ourselves to note that after the war, the Soviet government actively spread unspoken propaganda that the village is hard work, the horror of modern Soviet man, and the city is a bright future and wonderful prospects. This subconscious “zombification” led to an outflow of the smartest and most skilled people to the cities to work in factories. And those who remained were driven to collective farms.
The younger generation in the village needed housing. Therefore, construction from pasture materials was still relevant. We used all the same principles. Only more and more often did we think about the foundations. So how was it made? Basically, as necessary, on a quick fix without thinking about the consequences, without wasting time on quality (there were many reasons for this, not just carelessness). Often such a laid foundation could stand from a year to twenty before they began to build anything on it. To this day you can see the foundations laid back in the 80s; they are both the pride of the owners and the collapse of their hopes, overgrown with bushes and trees. Why was the foundation not given importance, even though it was clear from past experience that it was necessary? Firstly, few people knew what the technology and design of the simplest foundation and the principle of its operation should be, so the technology was developed using the method of popular experience and on the advice of neighbors and godfathers (in every village there was a specialist builder who supervised all construction projects, his traditional were invited, but at this time he was involved in the construction of cowsheds and other collective farm buildings). Secondly, high-quality Construction Materials. Thirdly, very little time was allocated for the foundation, since it was necessary to run the farm.
It is worth saying that the older generations had an advantage, the sites for houses were more or less carefully selected, and the young people were already building where their parents would give birth. Here we come to problems and errors.
The first mistake and the key to problems with the house is that this is a place for construction with all its characteristics (for more details, see the article “Selecting a site” and “ Good house with your own hands"). It was rarely chosen specifically and according to traditions that were known to our ancestors. This may cause a problem such as capillary suction of moisture from wet soils. Those houses that were built without a foundation on such soils ceased to exist. Others were luckier. A foundation made of rubble, slag, pile stumps (waste reinforced concrete products) and other available materials solved many problems. In addition, it has already become possible to get a couple of packs of bricks. But there are very few examples when brick was used to lay a plinth. As a rule, they covered the base and the wall (where horizontal waterproofing was not carried out). But this is in regions close to brick factories. The problem of the basement getting wet caused a lot of trouble for the residents of such houses. It was previously resolved with annual repairs. But our man is lazy. It was decided to cut down the base of the house and make a concrete plinth. This decision was disastrous primarily for block adobe and clay huts, while the huts have survived to this day (but in very poor condition). Most likely they survived, because the supports were filled with concrete and did not allow them to move apart. Then the concrete base was coated with bitumen. In order to avoid having to whitewash the walls and repair them every year, they came up with cement-sand tiles and used them to cover the facades. The tiles were nailed with 100-150mm nails onto 300-400mm walls. Thereby significantly worsening the thermal resistance of the wall. And cyclic freezing of sections of the wall did not have the most positive effect on the structure of the walls as a whole.
Over time, the walls began to slide off the plinths, the plinths began to turn inside out, and water began to flow in. Tiles peeling off near plinths. Over time, rodents trampled their way into the voids that appeared. They do not sharpen the clay itself, but the cracks formed between the frame and the clay interested them very much, they widened them and made nests in them. Over time, many walls in houses (especially non-residential ones or those where there is no owner's relationship) have turned into a kind of Swiss cheese. Also, cracks were formed due to the use of raw wood. Over the course of 10-20 years, the trunk dried out completely, and a cavity the size of a finger, or even two, formed between the adobe and the support. It’s worse when they used dead wood, usually affected by shashel. For 20 years, only dust remained from a full-fledged trunk.
If you look closely at the monuments of folk architecture exhibited in open-air museums, you will notice how large the roof overhang was made by our great-grandfathers. The overhang of the huts built in the 20th century. rarely more than 300mm. Hence the streams of water running along the walls, the need frequent repairs and whitewashing.
So far we have only touched the walls. How were the floors made? The technology was simple. The main beam, the slab, ran along the longitudinal axis of the house. The svolok was considered the abode of the brownie. Purlins rested on this beam, onto which clay was thrown. Where boards were used as purlins, the ceiling now looks like a bubble hanging into the room (partly because the board lay flat). Where unsanded round timber was used, repairs were required because the ceiling had long fallen off along with the bark. Also, the load was taken by eye, because deformations of the ceiling (partly again due to raw wood) were a constant phenomenon. The attic has always been used for drying and storage. Because of this, sometimes a weak overlap in some places could give uneven shrinkage, which could cause waves to appear.
In general, quite often thieves entered not through a window or door, but through a broken hole in the ceiling. But this is in those regions where the entrance to the attic was from the yard, and not from the house.
Wings of a house in the 20th century. asbestos fiber, bitumen, steel slates, less often tiles. In the west and north there are shingles and boards. In other matters, traditional straw and reeds were also used (each region had its own traditional roofs, but for the most part it was thatch). Even today it is possible, by picking many slate roofs, find straw or shingles underneath. I think one could say that the thermal resistance of a house covered with slate is several times less, and therefore in the summer the ceiling dries out and cracks, and in the winter the house cools down faster.
But the problem with reed and thatch roofing, in addition to the fire hazard, is that it needs constant care, and only then will it last a long time.
1. House made of adobe needs a good strip foundation (a foundation that can even be a clay pillow). Not overly powerful, just well made. You can use both traditional rubble masonry and embankments in trenches, and modern reinforced concrete tapes.
2.Adobe must be protected from capillary suction of moisture by a base and a steep blind area (can also be made of gravel with water drainage).
3. The walls must have a thickness of at least 500, and preferably 800 mm, or have a special design (a combination of different adobes according to their saturation with plant fillers). Upon completion of the walls, it is necessary to tie the walls with any type of belts (wooden or monolithic, but do not overdo it with weight). The walls themselves must be bandaged in their design, even a monolith.
4. The attic must be insulated. Warm attic- a guarantee of warmth in the home.
5. The roof overhang to the floor height must be at least 600-800mm. Proper collection and drainage of water must be organized.
6. The house needs care and attention. Adobe house
Only then will it serve as well as possible if you take care of it and look after it.
It is these conclusions that will help make your home durable and reliable. I would like to add that you can meet clay walls standing without a roof for more than 10 years. They, still, withstand structural load. Ordinary red brick needs to be removed after the third winter, although this is not particularly difficult - it crumbles.
Those huts that we see today have stood for more than 20-80 years without any owner's attention to them. Despite all the mistakes made and their modest, dilapidated appearance, they stand and perform their function remarkably well. Not a single house can boast that “it was built just right” and stood for so long, well, except for large-panel ones.
We do not advocate living in an old housing model that does not meet modern requirements for comfort and lifestyle. We try to pay attention to technology and mistakes made, in order to use the centuries-tested experience of our ancestors to build modern, comfortable, affordable housing. If you take into account and avoid all the listed mistakes, you can get a high-quality, warm, environmentally friendly, humane, durable house that you won’t be ashamed to leave to your great-great-grandchildren.
The usual Ukrainian hut, a mud hut, belongs to this capital group.
The technology of building houses from clay was known more than six thousand years ago. Mazanka, due to practicality, availability and low cost of materials, as well as speed of construction, was built everywhere. The main materials from which these clay dwellings were made over the centuries were brushwood, straw, reeds, wood, clay and other available materials, which can be found in abundance in Ukraine and southern Russia.
Among the huts there are distinguished: adobe-block hut, adobe-cast (adobe) and the hut itself. All these types of housing were used in the steppe and forest-steppe, where clay is abundant and there is almost no timber.
If a hut was built on the site of an old one that had burned down, then the removed clay was sorted into suitable and unsuitable (one that contained a lot of wood chips or that was baked from the fire was considered unsuitable).
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Adobe-block hut. It was made in two ways. In the first case, adobe blocks were used, into which an old unusable adobe hut with strong walls was sawed for one reason or another and sawed into transportable blocks. They sawed with a string saw made of barbed wire with handles. After the material was prepared, laying began with clay mortar.
In the second case, new blocks were made, but in this case it took a year to prepare the adobe blocks. During the first construction season, the family worked on making blocks: extracting clay (to do this, dig a well and a cellar, or extract it from a quarry located near the village). The best construction qualities the clay was produced by freezing, so it was stored on the site for the winter. Then the clay was mixed with straw or hay (sometimes wood chips), but more often with chaff (waste from milking grain) and the blocks were formed. The blocks that dried over the summer were stored in a stack for the winter, protected from snow and rain.
Whey, blood, and dung could be added to adobe mixtures to improve the properties of adobe. They not only increased the strength of adobe, but also increased its moisture resistance and durability.
On the territory of Ukraine, until the collapse of the USSR, rural factories producing adobe operated. Now there are only a few such factories, their products continue to be in demand among villagers.
This technology is characterized by convenient and fast construction; it was very easy to work at heights without serious scaffolding. Walls were quickly erected using clay mortar blocks. But often the villagers forgot to bandage the seams or made the walls too thin, which is why such houses eventually fell apart into “cubes”. But at the same time, the walls could turn into a monolith, which is very difficult to disassemble or destroy.
Adobe-cast (adobe) hut. The walls of such a hut are more durable and require much maintenance. The clay was soaked and kneaded next to the future home. One or more holes were dug in which the clay-sand mixture was mixed. Mixing could be carried out with the help of animals (horses, oxen) and special devices (cart wheels). The technology was divided into adobe and adobe.
Claystone is a technology for laying plastic clay into formwork that already contains straw. Claybite- This is a mixture of clay and straw with less water, also placed in formwork. In both cases, the mixture is thoroughly compacted.
The hut was built according to the principle of climbing formwork. This process was quite difficult and lengthy. It was necessary to prepare the mixture, install the formwork, lay the mixture with layer-by-layer compaction, wait for the structural strength to gain, after which the formwork was removed, the scaffolding was installed and everything was repeated all over again. The pouring height at one time is 300-400 mm. Up to 20 people, or even more, could work on one house at the same time.
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The difficulty of manufacturing was the compaction of the mixture above human height. With this technology, it was necessary to strictly follow a number of rules for arranging a complex ligation of a thin frame made of poles and reeds.
Mazanka. Muzanka is the warmest clay housing, the fastest to build, but no less labor-intensive. Burnt driftwood and large stones were used as the foundation. The cross members of the frame were branches of felled acacia. The frame was made without nails, I must say, all connections were made using mortises and notches. When a large tree was cut down, one trunk with a diameter of 300-400 mm was split into 2 or 4 parts and used as supports at angles. If younger trees were used, then trunks with a diameter of 100 to 200 mm were used to support the frame. Then branches were woven into the crossbars to create a kind of “basket.” After this, the frame was coated. A clay-straw mixture was used, the amount of straw ranged from 10 to 70% by weight.
The advantage of the hut was that it could be made in one season, because It dried much faster than ordinary adobe. In the manufacture of mud huts, adobe was also used, but much less.
In the northern variants, mud hut was carried out on a log house with 3-4 crowns, which was coated with kaolin clay. This method simultaneously solved the problem of caulking the seams and imparted a traditional white color.
Hut huts are still being built according to traditional technology using modern hardening solutions and a wide range of wood.
As a rule, it is performed under mud strip foundation. Then they begin to build the supporting frame. The wooden frame on which the hut wall is built is usually made of pine or oak wood. The walls of the house, in addition to the traditional method on plows (frame), are usually made on the basis of specially made adobe blocks or made of mud bricks.
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The main beam, the slab, ran along the longitudinal axis of the house. The svolok was considered the abode of the brownie. Purlins rested on this beam, onto which clay was thrown. Where boards were used as purlins, the ceiling now looks like a bubble hanging into the room (partly because the board lay flat). Where unsanded round timber was used, repairs were required because the ceiling had long fallen off along with the bark. Also, the load was taken by eye, because deformations of the ceiling (partly again due to raw wood) were a constant phenomenon. The attic has always been used for drying and storage. Because of this, sometimes a weak overlap in some places could give uneven shrinkage, which could cause waves to appear.
Until the 50s of the last century, in the northern and northwestern parts of Ukraine, as well as in some steppe regions of southern Russia, houses were traditionally built, which were popularly called and continue to be called mud huts(from the word smear - plaster clay mortar).
Now there are people who want to build ecological homes with their own hands. Therefore, enthusiasts are reviving such old-fashioned technologies, guided by the principle - “everything is new, it’s well forgotten old.”
Let's look at some features old technology making smeared walls.
The walls of the mud huts are composed like the walls half-timbered house, from wooden frame. The gap between the posts and crossbars, which used to be called cages, was filled in the following way: they installed wooden stakes and poles, braided them with brushwood, straw or reeds, and then coated them with clay.
Depending on the type of cell sealing, smeared walls can be divided into:
Wooden huts consist of frames (crossbars) and racks, the spaces between which are filled with thin logs (knurling), wooden plates or blocks. The surface of such a wall was first filled with wooden shingles from thin poles, and then coated with clay mortar.
Wicker mud hut. With this design cells load-bearing frame filled with vertical wooden stakes and horizontal poles (the pitch of the stakes and poles relative to each other was taken depending on their thickness, approximately 17...25 cm). After installation, these elements were braided with brushwood and plastered with clay mortar.
Straw hut differs from wattle only in that instead of brushwood, strands of long and straight rye straw were used. The pitch of the stakes from each other was about 17...18 cm.
Reed mud hut. When constructing walls in this way, bundles of winter reeds, previously cleared of husks, were attached with wire to poles installed in cages. The beams were nailed to the upper and lower horizontal elements of the half-timbered frame (trimming).
The walls were coated as follows. Surfaces of external and interior walls were previously cleaned and moistened with a wet brush, and the first layer of solution was thrown onto it, which was then left to dry. Next, subsequent layers were added until it was possible to smooth and level all the depressions on the surface of the walls.
When performing plastering work, before performing the subsequent plaster layer, pieces of crushed brick were stuffed into the fresh and still soft coating as much as possible.
After plastering and final drying of the entire plaster marking, the walls were whitewashed with lime, chalk or white clay.
The walls of cold auxiliary buildings were erected in a similar way. The ends of horizontal poles wrapped in straw, pre-impregnated with a liquid clay solution, were installed in the vertical side grooves of the racks. Adjacent rows of poles were fastened to each other with knitting needles, punching through the straw, or the rows of poles were intertwined with thin wire.
The surface of such walls was leveled by throwing a plaster mixture of clay, lime and sand.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts about mud houses...
