My brother and I are looking at building a cabin in a remote area of Northern Minnesota. It will be ICF (of course) with a Sip roof. But what kind of floor.....Concrete...Stained, done to death.

The earth is heavy clay after an inch of  black dirt. Isn't there some way to make a durable, attractive floor with that clay?

we have stamped alot of these floors with a fractured earth pattern or old granite. We do it everyday and it is almost always something new and different. Some of them are even up on lake vermillion. Its just a matter of being a little extra creative. Your decorative concrete guy should be able to helo you out

That clay would be a mess after a long night of spilling old milwaukees!

We do decorative concrete, but I wanted something different.

I think they build all clay houses in India then build a big fire in it to fire it. But I don't know how I could fire a floor in an ICF cabin.

You would have to fire it before the cabin is built. Maybe there would be an additive you could mix with the dirt to make it stronger.

I saw a show on TV that used an earthen floor.  Looked like stained concrete when finished.  Couldn't find the link to that one but here are some others.  "Earthen floor" seems to be the term to search.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2092103_install-earth-floor.html

http://www.ecoact.org/Programs/Green_Building/green_Materials/earthen_flooring.htm


http://www.dancingrabbit.org/newsletter/Newsletter0701-floors.php

Slenzen, Thanks for the info, I haven't had a chance to read the links, but they look good.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/green-home-earthen-floor.html


I saw that Worlds Greenest Homes tv show featured an earthen floor recently.

What about radon? What if you build your house and find out after that the earth is putting radon in your cabin?

I'm very interested in this subject since one day we would like to live in a straw bail home with earth floors. Right now though it is just a dream for the future, but lots of people are doing it now with great success. Anyway, here is a link to some fokes who have experience with earth floors.

 rammed earth floor and adobe floor

Good Luck and keep us posted!
Linda

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