I’d read that the western end of the Great Wall of China was made using the rammed earth method (not sure about the accuracy of this, they certainly seem to have used earth bricks).
The RE method seemed good in a number of ways but to me, mostly because it was a free building material. I understand the cost of building a structure is roughtly 30-50% labour and the rest is materials. So if I wanted to build a house myself, that’s a 50% saving and if I could get free materials then great.
I’d read about the benefits of having a certain mix but I didn’t want to increase the already high amount of labour involved so opted for a straight mix of the local material – clay.

Since it was an experiment and I didn’t want to risk a new dwelling, I opted to modify one wall of the generator shed, hoping at the least it would help improve soundproofing and reduce vibration.

generator shed

the rough method is to shutter an area you want to be a wall at a fixed width, this width is determined by putlogs which hold the plank shutters top and bottom and provide a fix for the next layer of shuttering, thus:

Rammed Earth 2nd layer

Then, fill the shuttered space with earth and ram it using, well, on this wall I used a sledge hammer because the roof was already in place and I didn’t have space to use a cement tamper. Since this time I’ve bought a sand rammer (usually used in ramming sand into moulds for casting iron) with varying degrees of success and later, better results with a pneumatic chisel using a tamp head.

I am given to understand that the removal of the putlogs after the wall has been built accounts for some of the holes that may be seen on castle walls about this country (not to be confused with the more obvious beam holes for floors, etc.). Some architects(?) choose to leave these wood putlogs in to assist later maintenance as in the mosque at Djenne

Rammed Earth fifth layer

Because I wasn’t going to mess with the original roof of the shed, it rather got in the way of the ramming so I finished the job by using the straw bale wall method:

Composite rammed earth/ straw bale wall

Then we rendered it with lime-putty plaster:

Lime Putty Plaster rendering

The plaster filled the cavities in the somewhat dry and crumbly wall, really solidifying it.

composite, plastered wall interior

We left the interior intentionally lumpy so as to best absorb and deflect the noise waves coming from the genset.

Finished Composite wall

I unfortunately lost some shots about the time this wall was finished, this is the closest to that time I could find.

The horizontal slates mask the DPM along the bottom.