How to Avoid Spacer Blocks in Earthship Tire Walls

I came across these two excellent illustrations of how spacer-blocks can be almost completely avoided in rammed-tire walls. It’s one of those cool smart and simple things. It comes complement of Earthship Belgium from an excellent post on how to efficiently organize and build rammed-tire walls.

Both of these solutions rely on the use of one-tire size throughout the project. The idea is to make the corner out of a tire who’s center is aligned with the faces of the two tire walls. Though the image display a 90 degree corner I believe that the same idea would work for any angle.

The same principle can be  used for T or Y junctions of two U modules. In this case two tires are used to create one level of the Y and a larger diameter tire is used to overlap the three tires below.

This takes care of everything except end-blocks (which you will inevitable get if you use tire walls for the inside walls as well). Earthship Belgium provide another article  about spacer-blocks – at the end of which you will find an explanation on how to create half-tires. I have encountered half-tires in my online searches before and though it is an appealing solution (no cement on site until later in the project) – it seems to me that cutting tired can be difficult unless you have the right tools for it.

I came across a lot of online hints that spacer blocks could be avoided (less concrete and much less hassle) but I couldn’t find a clear explanation of how this is achieved. Now I know … and now you do too. Thank you so much Willy and friends at Earthship Belgium.