Earthblock making – FASE Diary Week 4
We’ve been very busy for the last week and a half, but here’s our final update!
After finishing all of the compression testing, the earth block production went into full swing. Based on our compression test results, we agreed to produce 3 different earth bricks consisting of 6%, 8% and 11% cement and use these to create a test wall for each.
For the walls and some additional testing we needed 40 bricks of each composition. We spent full days on Monday and Wednesday preparing blocks again with significant help from Miss Sokphea and Mr Peouch from CIDO. Being in the teething stages of building Earth Blocks we managed around 40 blocks a day, but with some learnings (now carried on by CIDO), some additional moulds and a mechanical mixer, this figure should easily be able to exceed 100 bricks per day with 3 people.
By Thursday we had completed all of the earth bricks needed for the test walls. While the remainder of these cured we began preparing foundations for the test walls. We decided to mix the foundation by hand by combining the earth, cement and grave. This ended up being particularly difficult, especially in the heat! However we persevered as we only needed enough for the 3 test walls. During the Agri Tech construction the building contractor will most likely use a cement mixer. We recommended for the earth brick production to use a mechanical mixer or cement mixer also as it will reduce the labor time spent in mixing by hand and will be better for the well-being of the people involved as well.
On Monday this week we met with a local contractor as part of our effort to continue the tendering process. This meeting offered a valuable insight into the Khmer tendering process and has enabled us to create a plan forward with CIDO and Green Shoots in order to award a contract before building commences in August.
On Tuesday it was back to the field to build the first of three test walls. The rationale behind the walls is to expose the Earth Blocks to local weather for a period of 2 months and monitor them for erosion or other signs of degradation. This should verify the results from our testing last week and will allow a final composition to be selected.
Aside from exposing that this might be the first wall we have ever built… building the test wall was a fun and successful exercise! Building on our foundations poured the week before, the wall pictured below was constructed from 8% cement Earth Blocks, with 2 rows of purchased sand-cement blocks as a base. Starting on earth blocks from research and investigation phase to testing and now to actually use them to build something has been a great development to work through!
As we’ve run out of time in this mission, a further 2 walls, using the 6% and 11% bricks, will be constructed over the next few weeks by the CIDO team.
On our final trip to the Agri-Tec site we prepared 6%, 8% and 11% cement samples to be sent to Phnom Penh in 3 weeks time for lab testing. This will verify the results we gained from our field testing.
Today is our final day working in Samrao
ng before we head back to Europe. The last month has been a fantastic experience. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Green Shoots and CIDO and have learned a lot from the project. We’d like to thank Ratana at CIDO and Muneezay at Green Shoots for organizing our mission.
This is a great project to get involved in and we would highly recommend doing so if you have some free time and want to contribute to an NGO making a meaningful difference in Cambodia.
Akun Chraan!
All the best,
Sakshi and Tom
You can still contribute towards this project via this link: https://mydonate.bt.com/events/greenshoots10nov
