CEB Press

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Introduction

CEB - Compresssed Earth Block press - regarded as the highest quality natural building method; also used in upscale housing; does not require curing - so may be built continuously; lends itself to 100% onsite building material sourcing; excellent thermal, acoustic, and strength; aka structural masonry. Also usable in fences, cisterns, road paving, Usable for ovens in a bakery, pond dams, thermal storage cisterns, silos. Used for barns, dairy plant, bakery building, additinal housing, greenhouses, etc. I would go so far as that could be the secret weapon of the entire operation. Other connections in diagram: requires soil to be pulverized, which may be done with the agricultural spader. May be used for building raised beds, modular building and greenhouse units. High value flex fab enterprise opportunity for any entrepreneur interested in fabrication of machine- huge profits are possible, because other CEBs are expensive ($25k for one of 3-5 brick/minute performance). Livelihood opportunity for independent builders. Requires as little as 1 person to operate. OSE design is based on power from tractor hydraulics - where the tractor is a general tool that can supply power to a large number of devices. Output with 2 people - a 6 foot high round wall, 20 feet in diameter, 1 foot thick, can be built in one 8 hour day. Fabrication is simple - after metal is cut - a drill press is required for drilling holes for design-for-disassembly structure. Welding is required in a few places where bolting is not practical, such as the hopper box. Summary: a high performance, rapid, semi-skilled building technique, which lends itself as a building method for creating advanced civilizations. Lifetime design.

OSE Product Development Cycle - CEB

This OSE Product Development Cycle is explained on the main page. On this page, we go through the actual development process, from concepts to design to prototype to fabrication facility to production for market.

Core Team

Presently, we are recruiting the Core Team for this effort. We presently have the Factor e Team on technical development and Sam Rose on the social enterprise development. We are looking for peer reviewers and strategic developers.

Ecological Review

Wikipedia provides a neutral overview of the CEB construction method. We do not have a neutral evaluation of this building technique when the technique is compared face to face with other technologies, because no other building method comes close when an integrated perspective is taken.

Consider this, such as for North America. You have a choice of wood: stick-frame, timber frame, post and beam; structural masonry: brick, concrete block, rock, CEB (note that CEB falls into the class of structural masonry); earth: adobe, rammed earth, stabilized earth blocks; and natural building methods: strawbale, cordwood, earthbag, papercrete, cob, and many others. Here are some considerations.

  1. Suitability of building technique for economic localization - CEB walls can be made with 100% insite soil, and even with the soil that is removed for a basement or foundation. Only lumber houses can come close to localization potential when lumber is harvested locally and sustainably. Other earth or natural building techniques can use local material, but they don't contribure too much to mainstreamable localization economics because they are too expensive due to the building time requirements. Machine production can also be completely local.
  2. Ecological qualities - 100% local, natural, onsite material, even for the 'mortar' - see Wikipedia
  3. Strength - CEB is second only to rock and steel. Strength of CEBs is up to 2000 psi according to Wikipedia. Walls are tornado- and bullet-proof.
  4. Cost - if one has access to a $3-5k machine from OSE and onsite soils, then CEB wins hands down. A tractor with loader and rototiller are required to prepare the soil for massive building projects.
  5. Building ergonomics - 3-5 bricks per minute (bricks are 6x12x4 inches) means a 6 foot high wall for a 300 square foot round building can be erected in one workday. This is possible because the mortar used is a slurry of the same material as the bricks, with added water. This is as fast or faster than walls with stick framing in the context of a 2-person team with tractor and rototiller. On this account, other natural building methods do not even come close. We have first hand experience with cordwood and earthbag, in that they take about 10 times more time than engineered methods.
  6. Durability - Unsurpassed except for stone. 100-500 year lifetime is expected.
  7. Thermal properties - unsurpassed. Significant thermal flywheel.
  8. Aesthetics - see CEB house examples

Stick frame construction is the main building method in North America. It is a weak but fast building method, which makes money for developers but returns little value to the homeowner, if one considers lifecycle cost of buildings. Procuring lumber drains money out of local economies. This is not to mention clear-cutting and vast lumber monocultures that supply the lumber. We are interested in raising the standard of building, away from stick frame. We believe that with all these considerations, the CEB is the only building technique that even remotely has a chance of substituting for stick frame constuction, and that with our machine, priced $3-5k and designed for fabrication replication, will fill in a great need. CEB construction has the potential for mainstreamability in home construction.

We await the Review part of the Product Development Cycle, eagerly, to verify or disprove any of our claims.


  1. Product Definition
  2. Design Phase
  3. Review
  4. Bids
  5. Fundraiser Recruitment
  6. Fundraising
  7. Product Delivery
  8. Produce Testing
  9. Prototype Optimization
  10. Fabrication Development
  11. Fabricator Recruiting
  12. Fabrication Optimization
  13. Production
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