Shown in this image is the new adobe floor troweled and ready to dry in this 200 sq. ft. room in this adobe block home. This home was designed and constructed by one of the first passive solar adobe builders in the Santa Fe, sometime, we believe in the 1970’s. We were brought in to do a top coat repair on the poured adobe floor (also known as earthen floors or mud floors).
When took off the top of the existing floor which came up in uneven chunks. This indicated that maybe the sub-floor had some issues and given the rather weak clay content of the local soil in that area, it might have been the reason. However, given any natural building technique which is dealing with organic matter and is not mechanically made, there are always unknowns with any material. Those of us who work with earth, clay and mud do understand it’s properties and can offer educated guesses, but short of sending soil off for analysis, we cannot truly be certain.