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So yesterday my wife and I got back to work on the barn. We had spent monday weeding our jungle of the garden and my wife got extremely sunburned so I gave her a few days to heal before shoveling dirt.

I started laying out the wire while she was filling the bags

I had laid about 6 bags when we started noticing some of the bags were ripping

I went through about 10 bags and the same thing happened. Not sure what caused it. The bags are suppose to have a 1600 hour uv protection and we have been covering the bags for the most part. I figured it was a bad run of bags so I grabbed another stack of bags and started using them. If it continued I was scrapping this project and would figure something else out, but the bags held. As I was looking at the stack of bags a light bulb went off.

The bags have ties weaved into them to tie off the sandbags and we had been removing them before we stacked the bags

I decided to leave them on because they would be great to tie the chicken wire to the bags for stucco

We started filling and stacking the new bags, but I was concerned about the first 6 I had laid

We finished up the course

and compacted it

sure enough we had 2 blow outs

So I removed the ruined bags

popped in some new ones

and compacted them

We were starting to develop some corner droop which is happens on end courses because when you compact they have nothing against them to compact against. The book says to hard ass the ends which means to compact them when loading the bags, but we have still developed the droop. As it becomes more noticeable I will put in half filled bags to level it up

So we knocked out the other side

Still have quite a bit of soil, I think we might need just another 9 yards

my wife measured the height and we were at 20 inches. She asked how many more courses? I said probably 8 which will bring us up to 5 feet, We will see how stable that is and decide if we want to go more. We still need to pour a bond beam on top of that which will bring us up another 6 inches and then when we transfer to wood that will bring us up another 8 so we should end up with about a 6 foot height. It will be a low building but my goal is to match the look of the building to the gazebo which is similar in height.

We will attack course number 5 on sunday. If we continue having bag failure, I think I will just pour the bond beam and go up with wood framing from there, it's not what I want, but we will see, peace

yeah, the goal is to have a staggered bond, same as block work but each bag is different as far as how it compresses and expands based off the moisture content, how much bag is full etc. I start out with a staggered bond but it always seem likes I still end up with verticals aligned. i was concerned about it but after looking at the pictures of the examples in the book I see they seem to have the same outcome. I think I'm going to start incorporating more half bags to stay on the safe side. I am amazed how after compacting and letting the bags sit for a couple days how solid the whole structure is. Will be interested to see how it continues as the walls go up.

So we started on the barn again the other day and started laying out the barbed wire

we started setting some bags and decided the soil was to dry

So I asked my wife to water down the soil pile and she got a little crazy with it

so that shut down that days productivity

the next morning the soil had drained and was still pretty damp but was workable

so we started filling and stacking

we went around and started compacting

and my compactor broke

are you kidding me, does anyone make quality products anymore?

It worked out well with soaking the soil overnight, so we hosed down the pile and caled it good

the next morning I started on the other side

my wife went and picked up another compactor, let's see how long this one lasts

I am starting to step the entry ways back for stability on the corners

I walked by the other side and looked down and saw another blow out, not sure if I snagged the corner with the pick ax or what

so I started removing bags

working around the wire was a pain

but I was able to get a new bag set, compacted it and replaced the other bags

so I laid out the wire

and continued with the wall

so yesterday I started on the other side

I wanted to build a screen for the soil because picking out the rocks and stuff was a pain and also to help break up the soil, I was walking out the back door of the restaurant and looked under the dish machine and noticed a old dish rack we had but never used, it would be perfect

it worked awesome

it took a little longer due to the extra step, but it was much easier loading the bags and stacking them,

six courses up, halfway there to my original goal of 12, I might go to 14 though