Footprint dugout. Our frost line is 4′. Our property slopes, so the deepest area was 6′ the shallowest was 4′.
We had to manually scrape the edges vertical. To prep for the french drain.
digging out the french drain. The bags will be placed on top.
More digging
completed digging… more or less
See Comment #1 below
French drain completed and ready for bag building.
We used 1″ flex Styrofoam wrapped in black plastic as a vapor barrier between the bags and the earth. We also had a lot of back-filling and tamping/packing the dirt down.
You can look at a book called Earthbag Building by Kaki Hunter, which was what we generally followed. With the exception of a lot of “staged” photos, and techniques which might have worked for her, but not for our real world application. i.e. “Barbed wire doesn’t come out straight and easy.”
Comment 1: We lined the hole with 4 mil black plastic… used black 6″ flex irrigation tubing which exited into a deeper trench and away from the footprint. We wrapped the tubing with erosion fabric and added drain rock on top then tamped it down.
Montana Off-Grid Living 
yes! thanks, I’m actually reading through that book now. it’s an inspiration to see your project, I’ve read all of your blogposts. I can’t wait to get started with ours….I really have no idea where to start…books are great but I learn better by speaking to someone with experience. there’s still a few things about the foundation I don’t understand. we will most likely be building in New England (cold, wet, wintry and warm, humid summers) so, I want to make sure I figure out the right foundation system…..have you had any major issues with your construction up to this point? did you use a different fill for your foundation / stemwall?
thanks so much!
Derek
Hi Derek, This post should answer some of your questions… https://halcyontimes.wordpress.com/building-prep/flashback-issues-with-construction/
I used your starter rope replacement steps the other day and it worked flawlessly. Great pics. Thanks.
Glad it helped. 🙂