Finally, Uviña-Contreras points out, adobe has great compressive strength, meaning it’s good at holding stuff up but is weaker at handling tension—it tends to crack or deform when it’s pulled or twisted, though Pemberton notes that adobe’s not as brittle as concrete. That’s something to consider if you live in an earthquake-prone region.
Do you have to be in a dry climate to have an adobe home?
“You can build with adobe anywhere you want in the world,” Uviña-Contreras confirms.
That said, if you live in an area with lots of flooding, you need higher foundations. Still, it’s important to keep in mind that a little moisture in the adobe core is actually healthy. So you may find yourself actually trying to add a little humidity to the home.
“Grandma used to put a pot of water over the wood stove to bring moisture into the house,” Uviña-Contreras says of his grandmother, who had an adobe home in arid Mexico.
Notable adobe houses
Though Americans tend to think mostly of the Pueblo Revival style of architecture when thinking of adobe construction, adobe architecture has spanned millennia, and adobe buildings have been around long before many of the buildings you see in California, Texas, or the Southwest. The multistory adobe houses of the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, for example, are between 600 and 1,000 years old, and are still home to thousands or people.
In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration built a large number of public buildings with adobe blocks in Albuquerque and in what’s now the White Sands Historic District in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and most of them still stand today.
Pemberton says perhaps her favorite adobe structure of all is the Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How long do adobe houses last?
Adobe structures have stood for millennia. If you maintain your adobe home properly and regularly, then it could last for several generations.
How much do adobe houses cost?
Though the materials to build an adobe house can be anywhere from cheap to free if you’re making the blocks on site, the labor costs will be prohibitive for many. Don’t be surprised if labor takes up half or more of your project budget or if your costs run four times or more what a stick-frame would cost you. Furthermore, you have to factor in the fact that adobe buildings can take four times or longer to complete, adding to your costs.
Do adobe houses stay warm?
Adobe walls have a high thermal mass, meaning they readily absorb heat by day and release it inside at night, keeping the home warm at night and cool by day.
Are adobe structures vulnerable to earthquakes?
Adobe walls are good at compression but can be prone to cracking under the twisting, pulling pressure an earthquake puts it under. That said, adobe is still more flexible than concrete, and adobe builders have been been working on solutions for centuries, including building with meter-thick walls, double walls or flexible walls, or using a combination of adobe and wattle-and-daub techniques to try to make earthquake-proof adobe structures.
