A classic image of the poorly built adobe home we were asked to consider salvaging. The original home was built somewhere around 1976 by some local builders who were inexperienced with correct normal building methods, yet alone natural building methods. Specifically they not only did not put the adobe bricks upon a foundation (let alone a proper one), they simply dug a deep hole the size of the home footprint and placed the adobe bricks upon the ground.
Given the number of homes these days which are built bermed into the earth, they had a bit of a good idea, however the house sit at the base of a watershed. We were told reports of a few of the original inhabitants of water rushing in through the back door flooding the entire small house, on more than one occasion.
After approaching a series of builders with the notion of renovating and repairing this small 400 sq. ft adobe house, we were the only ones who stepped up to the plate and didn’t recommend they tear the house down.
As is shown in additional photos in this gallery, we dug into the walls to investigate the water damage and other issues. Our findings were that indeed most of the adobe walls sitting without proper foundation were in pretty good shape (thanks to the waterproof properties of cement stucco). We did find the roof to be in poor shape and concluded that it was the direct source for most of the building and living woes associated with the house.