“The most environmentally friendly product is the one you didn’t buy.” – Joshua Becker
We have seen many people nowadays switching back to old traditional way of living. Including building eco friendly mud houses.. Mud is a natural and abundant material that does not require much energy to manufacture or transport. There is a little bit science and logic too behind building mud houses in olden times.
Mud houses are typically made from a mixture of clay soil, water, and organic materials such as straw, husks, or cow dung. The clay provides cohesion and strength to the structure, while the organic materials enhance the mixture's workability and help reduce cracking during drying.
We too lived on such houses many years ago. But with times , things have changed and so does our way of living. Still I managed to preserve a little part of our old houses.
It is a typical traditional way of lifestyle which we slowly foregoing in race of development. We switchicng back to pucca houses made up of cement and bricks. But interestingly I like old stuffs as an antique at my home, and this is reason I intentionally kept it like it was before. It shows our legacy of ancient lifestyle. There is an earthen / mud floor in my house with small chulas (wooden stoves) too.
a mud stove (chullha) in the interior
Living in mud houses has certain advantages
- They are very easy to build with limited material.
- They are cheap and affordable does not require much manpower.
- Mud houses helps in keeping the interior temperature under check. Even in hot climate regions.
The main issue with these mud floor is that it deteriorates very fast and require regular maintenance. The regular use of it may create wear and tear. Mine is not differrnt, Tye old mud started to came out of the floor while few pigeons also spoiled certain corner of the floor.
(pigeons poop all over the place)
It is important to look after tye mud houses regularly. Mine was too old and not been repaired since long. It still has a little mud chullaa to cook during some specual ocassion. This Diwali, I found it an oppurtunity to renew a bit. I am not going to repair it completelly, but going to give it a touch of mud and cow dung to enhance it's life span little longer.
(free materials for repairing the floor)
I never done this before. This is going to be give a completelly new experience. I have seen other people doing it in my village. I thought to do it by my own. It is going to be a learning curve and a new experience of village life. I managed all the necessary item water, cow dung and soil from my village. These are abundantly available in our village with no cost involved
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(cow dung and brown mud)
I have seen people mixture of these and put them on their walls and floor. Not sure, how the mixture going to. I started to mix the materials with the help of water. At first I thought to make a thick mixture and spread it all over the place. But that will make the floor more wet and take time to dry.
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(making a mixture of.mud and cow dung by mixing water)
To make my job easier, I already made the floor wet. A leaf out of the construction textbook. First make the surface wet before applying cement. It helps in fixing of the material. I added more to my mixture to make it more thinner. I wanted to paint the entire surface with the mixture. The liquid may easily be soaked in surface and get quickly dried.
(A thinner liquid paste, made to applied on the floor)
Finding the mixture suitable to applied in the surface. But before I broomed the entire area to remove all the dirt from it. After that I started to apply the soil mixture onto the floor with the help of a cloth. I was missing the painting brush badly. But have to be content with may resources and this is how things comes up at the end.
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(creating a layer of the mixture on top of the floor surface using our hand)
The outcomes looks good to me, with whatever experince I had. But it added a new leasenof life and a texture to that portion of my home.
Mud house is worth being considered as a sustainable, practical and cost-effective option. Preserving a bit of it in my home gives me immense joy and happiness.
