Rammed Earth: Expand Sustainably With SIREWALL

Most buildings have a life expectancy of less than 50 years. This cycle exhausts energy and resources and creates a toxic waste stream by constantly rebuilding. As well, there are no building codes or standards that require buildings be disaster resistant, healthy (containing no toxic materials) or meet other important benchmarks of a quality construction such as energy efficiency, environmental impact and durability.

SIREWALL’s green design is low to no impact, using sustainable, locally sourced and ecological building materials. Durable stabilized, insulated rammed earth walls are virtually fire, water and earthquake proof.

In Australia, rammed earth walls have a four-hour fire rating, the highest for Australian codes. Fire tests to AS 1530.4 – 1985 on a 300mm-thick rammed earth wall with 6 percent cement gave 240/240/240 for structural adequacy, integrity and insulative capacity. This means the wall is still standing strong after four hours in a fire. SIREWALL meets this – the highest rating available.

Designed to withstand seismic events in Zone 5 (San Francisco and Los Angeles), the compressive strength of a SIREWALL typically falls between 10–30 MPa (1,450––4,500 psi), making it highly seismically resistant. SIREWALL Specifications for minimum compressive strength are almost double the competition. SIREWALL has achieved more than 6,000psi with only 10 percent cement and regularly exhibits the same strength as concrete with a fraction of the cement. Because the bending moment increases with the cube of the wall thickness, comparing a 24” SIREWALL and 8” concrete wall, the SIREWALL is 13.5 times as strong.

Comparing resources required in building construction, a typical five-acre treed parcel supplies wood for 20 wood-framed houses, while a five-acre gravel pit has sufficient suitable earth to build rammed earth walls for more than 5,000 houses. Further, no precious topsoil is lost when building with rammed earth.