Your Guide To Green

Earthen flooring, also known as dirt floors, is quickly gaining popularity among environmentally conscious homeowners who are opting to forgo traditional flooring such as hardwood or carpeting. Made from dirt, lime, sand, clay and paper pulp and sealed with linseed oil and beeswax, this flooring is inexpensive, quick to install and unique.

Earthen flooring is part of a movement called natural building: natural building focuses on the environmental friendliness of the entire construction process. Since dirt flooring uses raw materials and requires very little processing, it is gaining a lot of notoriety among professionals in the green building industry.

Frank Meyer, a natural builder, Thangmaker, from Austin, Texas installs dirt floors. He says that earthen floors are “really special� and “when people walk in, they don’t say, ‘Oh, nice floor.’ Everyone gets down on their hands and knees to admire it.� He notes that after a while, it begins to have the same look as a rustic, weathered leather couch.

Reminiscent of the adobe buildings that are native to the southwest, a similar process that entails layering buckets of mud and spreading it with a trowel also creates dirt floors. The mud consists of various elements, with no specific recipe for the concoction; most are made from a combination of dirt, clay, paper pulp, lime and sand (both aggregates of concrete).

There are several methods for installing a dirt floor. All entail beginning with a four-inch slab of pea-gravel with a layer of straw insulation, topped with layers of the mud mixture. Before additional layers are added all cracks must be filled and allowed to dry completely. Generally, about two or three layers are applied. Once all layers have been applied, a waterproof and stain-proof sealant made of linseed oil and beeswax is applied.

People who choose to install dirt floors often opt to stamp or inlay tiles in the dirt during the last phase, adding an aesthetic bonus. If you are concerned about your floor looking like a muddy backyard, don’t worry: dirt floors also can include the addition of natural pigments for coloration.

There are several perks to dirt floors other than the unique look.

• A high thermal capacity allows dirt floors to act as a passive solar heater because they capture the warmth of the sun, retain it and release it at night, therefore decreasing your heating bills.
• Inexpensive durable and low maintenance, dirt flooring also has a minimal to zero pollution factor, eliminates construction waste and has no harmful off-gassing.
• Low maintenance durable when taken care of properly, dirt floors are crack-free, solid and easily serviced.

There are a few things to be aware of when you consider installing a dirt floor. Be sure to avoid rooms that are exposed to excessive moisture, such as bathrooms and kitchens. Also, dirt floors cannot tolerate point-loads, such as high-heels as they leave indentations in the floor. In order to maintain the integrity of your floor, regularly clean it with soapy water (don’t worry – it won’t turn to mud!) and re-apply a coat of the linseed oil and beeswax mixture every year. www.ecoact.org/

* This article’s icon is an image from the construction of the Chapel of Reconciliation, Berlin 1999 — 2000. It is referenced from link:
www.kirche-versoehnung.de