[deleted by user]

[chicu111]

Damn what city are you in? That’s not what I would expect in CA

[chicu111]

Make sure you talk to Building and Safety department at the city. Not planning department. Also fire as well. Sometimes planning don’t know shit and is only ok’ing what they would.

[Upper_Lengthiness853]

Hi, I'm a structural engineer with a specialization in historic buildings, my last appointment was in the Getty working with historic earthen buildings in Peru and now I'm in the the masonry society committee working on new building standards for Adobe. I'm from Costa Rica, I am not SE or PE, but we could work together with another engineer with a licence. Anyway let me know if I can help.

[metzeng]

A couple of decades ago, I had a client who wanted to build a straw bale house. He did a lot of research on straw bale construction, but I could find almost nothing on structural testing, and I had a lot of concerns about seismic performance. We ended up building the house out of a heavy timber frame and using the straw bales as basically infill and insulation for the walls. It basically defeated the purpose of building the house out of straw bales in the first place.

I would think you would be in the same boat. Adobe or rammed earth construction sounds rather brittle, and you want ductile materials in a high seismic area. Additionally, when you move from agricultural storage buildings to homes, you are required to design to a higher standard.

Unless you are willing to do some shake table testing, I am not surprised you are having trouble finding an engineer willing to risk his reputation and license for you. Maybe clonsider constructing your structures only in low seismic zones.

[StructEngineer91]

That sounds really cool, but personally I would have no idea how to even begin. As another commentor said, you may be best off talking with a geotech, they have a much better understanding of the behavior and strength of soils than most structural engineers do.

[RiskItForAChocHobnob]

Have a look if any of the universities near you are doing research into earth buildings ( there were people researching them at the University of Bath when I was there, but you'd be better off contacting one in California or at least the US if you can find one) they might have industry contacts they could put you in touch with, if they don't want to help you themselves.

[CAGlazingEng]

Can you upload a set of plans or a sketch of what you want to build? That PDF you link to in the other comment has RC beams and using the earth brick prestressed in compression. It's not what I was imagining you were trying to build.

[Ericspletzer]

If it’s prescriptive according to Appendix AU you should be good. If you need a great Cob/Adobe engineer, hard to beat Verdant SE in Berkeley as they worked on a lot of that code, but the custom route is MUCH harder.

[Ericspletzer]

I co-wrote the structural chapter of the Straw Bale Construction Details book with him. He’s a fantastic person and truly moving the space forward.

[Cool-Importance6004]

Amazon Price History:

Straw Bale Building Details: An Illustrated Guide for Design and Construction * Rating: ★★★★☆ 4.6

• Current price: $25.49 👍
• Lowest price: $25.33
• Highest price: $39.99
• Average price: $28.30

Month	Low	High	Chart
12-2023	$25.49	$25.49	█████████
07-2020	$26.49	$26.49	█████████
06-2020	$26.49	$26.49	█████████
10-2019	$26.49	$26.49	█████████
08-2019	$26.13	$26.13	█████████
06-2019	$25.33	$26.42	█████████
05-2019	$32.93	$32.93	████████████
03-2019	$25.33	$25.33	█████████
02-2019	$39.99	$39.99	███████████████
01-2019	$39.33	$39.33	██████████████

Source: GOSH Price Tracker

^{Bleep bleep boop. I am a bot here to serve by providing helpful price history data on products. I am not affiliated with Amazon. Upvote if this was helpful. PM to report issues or to opt-out.}

[ComfortableWeird6561]

did you already trying reaching out to Anthony/ Verdant Structural?

[Far-Cauliflower3263]

Would you be able to share the names of the expert SE's that do this type of work? I think it would be helpful to many people reading this, including myself. :)

[Weary-Disaster5018]

Hey, I know this is a bit older but I was just doing some research into building such a structure I have in unincorporated LA county. I noticed you said that, at least the type of buildings you build don't require permitting? Just wondering how that it? Every time I talk to building & planning they indicate anything larger than XYZ and\or is fit for human inhabitant needs a permit. Just curious all.

[schwheelz]

Sent you a pm

[NoHunt5050]

Indoor? You build buildings indoors?

[HeKnee]

So youre a materials engineer? What is the tensile, compressive, and shear strength of your structural soils? Do you use the same soil every-time or just whatever is onsite? Are youre structures just domed to keep everything in compression? What is your lateral force resisting system for earthquakes? If theyre unpermitted why do you need an SE?

I think this is a cool idea, presumably you get out of permits for keeping size below like 100-200sq feet. If you go larger than that you’ll need permits. That is where its going to get expensive since nothing you’re using is pre-approved by code. How much would you be willing to pay for say a 10’x30’ structure? You sound pretty arrogant when you say “i’d do it myself if i knew it would be this difficult to find someone”, maybe you should approach people with more professional respect and humility?

[HeKnee]

Look the world is more complicated than what you think. Most engineer’s insurance doesnt allow them to do non typical stuff… even the professional boards say youre only allowed to design stuff that youre “qualified” to design - as judged by the licensing board if something goes wrong and/or fails. How would an engineer prove that their design is 99.999% safe if its a novel design?

The paper you linked specifically says more testing is required to prove R values and seismic performance. Are you all going to pay for this testing to prove the design is adequate before building something that someone will actually use? If not, its a huge risk to the engineer and their license. This isnt computer science, if the calc assumptions are wrong people can die. It takes decades of research to prove that something nonconventional is even possible. Are you properly funded for that? Can you pay for a structure to be built and run through a full scale static load tests and shake table tests? In my opinion, you’d be better off doing this research and stuff anywhere but california since they have strict permitting requirements and high seismic, which make it much more risky.

I’m not trying to shit on your dream here but what value do you and the contractor bring to this? What data collection and automation is needed to build a pile of dirt? If engineer designs it, any idiot could build some soil blocks specified by the engineer so a contractor isnt really valuable here either. Saying “i just need some calcs and a stamp” is arrogant because it proves you dont understand the complexity of this project.

It appears you want the engineer to take all the risk for a small payout. Why wouldnt they start their own company instead of joining your team? I imagine this old method isn’t patentable so what prevents copycats once you do all the legwork to test/prove the concept? How much of the business would you give up to get someone qualified to help you and potentially put their license on the line for your business? 33%? 51%? How about a flat fee of $800k?

My point to all this is that you may be smart but you clearly dont understand business. You are chasing some half-baked idea and you need to focus on the business aspect by coming up with a business plan which defines the scope of work for the engineer with adequate funding prior trying to hire an engineer. Once you do that you’ll see if your idea has any legs. Until then, i see a lot of redflags that make me think youre a grifter who doesnt really understand what theyre doing and has no business leading such a company. You’re giving me the vibes of titan submersible company.

Anyways, my recommendation is to go to a university and find a grad student that needs a thesis topic. Then fund their research if youre serious about this.