When many people hear the term "adobe" they think of the traditional homes that litter the southwest. These buildings, similar to a cob house are made entirely of mud and straw bricks, with a skim coating of mud. 

While this is the most traditional type of adobe home, this is not the only style. There are a variety of types of adobe homes -- our house is a "post-adobe" structure -- meaning it is constructed using a combination of posts and adobe bricks. "Posts are placed in the post adobe frame at all corners, every 8 feet (2.4 m.) along the wall, and on either side of all windows and doors. Bricks are laid between the posts to fill the open space. The adobe bricks do not, however, support any of the structural weight other than their own." (source)

It should be noted that traditional adobe home construction stopped in California in roughly the 1970s when building codes changed. It is still possible to build an adobe home from scratch, but it takes a considerable amount of additional engineering work which can be time consuming and costly. 

However, well maintained Adobe homes can last for as long as "800 years provided foundations and roofs are properly maintained, far outlasting wood-frame buildings." (source)

History, Construction

Useful Sites

• Building In Adobe in the San Joaquin Valley, VAF Conference Fresno 2008

• Putting up adobe walls

• Adobe homes for sale / sold

• Adobe is not software

• Adobe...A timeless solution

• Adobe, Building and Living with Earth, Orlando & David Larkin Romero

• Preservation of Historic Adobe Buildings, National Park Service

Books

• Adobe Architecture, Myrtle and Wilfred Stedman

• Adobe: Build It Yourself, Revised Edition, Paul McHenry, 1985

• Adobe and Rammed Earth Buildings: Design and Construction, Paul McHenry, 1985

• Adobe: Remodeling & Fireplaces, Myrtle Stedman

• Build With Adobe, Marcia Southwick

• The Earthbuilder’s Encyclopedia, Joseph Tibbets

• The Owner-Built Adobe House, Duane Newcomb

• The Owner-Built Home, Ken Kern

• A study of Adobe construction in domestic architecture of California, by Clarence Cullimore, November 1940

• Modern Adobe: Preservation of pre-and post-World War II residential construction in Southern California, by Dominic Calarco, 2008