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Post date: Jun 27, 2017 10:50:18 PM
The first photo is Lafe's (the contractor) trailer with several pallets of adobe blocks. There are probably ten more pallets of adobes which the local building supply delivered this morning. They maybe did not have enough in stock, and this is a small house. Adobe means “mud brick” in Spanish, and they are made of dried mud reinforced with straw. In the old days the adobes were made on site, but these were probably made in Alcalde, NM — between Santa Fe and Taos. [The real estate industry has taken over the word to mean a house build of adobe.]
The second photo shows the foundation prepared for laying the adobes. In each corner, and at each doorway, vertical bucks are mounted and marked vertically for the thickness of each course of adobes. The mason then ties a string between the bucks to indicate the top of each course. This ensures that the walls come out even beneath all the windows, along the tops of the doorways, and at the top of the walls. Javier has been building adobe buildings in Taos for 37 years. He says that when he arrived the workers did not mark the top of each course, and they often were very uneven.
Also, in the old days, rather than a concrete foundation they used clay. (Our soil here in Taos is silt, which is not so fine as clay and does not harden as much as clay.) Another more usual foundation is simply rocks packed into a trench and often rising above the ground level. The rocks prevent ground water from wicking up into the mud walls, which would destroy them. However, both clay and stone foundations often settle over the years, damaging the walls above.
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