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My Fathers HouseThe 50th Anniversary

by Dave DeLaurant

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The DeLaurants moved west from Nebraska in 1947, insearch of a milder climate to aid moms recovery from

tuberculosis. For the exodus, dad built a 20 aluminum

house trailer, the modern equivalent of a covered

wagon. Mom, dad and Kermit lived inside this hot,

crowded can for their first three years in Fresno,

California.

Housing was scarce in the years

following WWII. Affordable housingmeant small and uncomfortable. The

DeLaurants moved from their trailer

into this tiny rental house, where dad

began planning a real home.

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Laurice DeLaurant had some definite ideas about his familys future home. First and most

important, the materials chosen had to be cheap. Clich or not, dirt was the cheapest substanceavailable.

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The pamphlet reproduced above was kept with some of dad's early construction sketches. He may

already have heard about soil cement, but I'm pretty sure that the design of his house came

information he found right here. He once mentioned that he had originally considered compressing

(ramming) this material into forms, but experimentation showed that it had sufficient strength

when poured (puddled) and allowed to set like concrete.

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After locating and purchasing a suitable lot for $500, a

detailed layout was worked up. Wall thickness conforms

to the soil-cement pamphlet, which recommends 12"

thickness for 8' height. As his drawing shows, the longestrunning walls are buttressed with intersecting walls to

stay within the recommended 30:1 ratio of length to

thickness. Note the chimney and extra kitchen window

in the early elevation at left.

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There wasnt much room in the construction

budget for machinery. Dad cobbled together

the mixer shown below using a circa-1900 gas

engine, which was later restored and put on

exhibit at a local automotive machine shop.

The formula for dads mud was

approximately nine parts clean soil to one

part Portland Cement. Kermit says dad

also added a coffee can of quicklime to the

mix. The soil had to be free of leaves androots, which meant he had to dig deep.

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Thick walls require a lot of dirt, which eventually resulted in a big hole in the ground. Making a

virtue of necessity, dad straightened and plastered the walls, put a roof over it and made it into a

storage cellar.

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Every building needs a solid foundation. The

footing for the load-bearing walls was made ofconventional reinforced concrete for maximum

strength. The concrete slab floor was poured

after the walls went up. This view nicely

illustrates the layout of the load-bearing walls

The soil-cement walls were raised in multiple courses approximately

6" high. The single set of forms was reused for each course.

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Dad used hundreds of US Army surplus tent stakes to brace his

forms. As you can see at left, the soil-cement courses were

reinforced with fence wire, salvaged brake-rods -- whatever

structural steel dad could come by cheaply.

As the courses of soil-cement rose, dad placed short lengths of

iron pipe in the mud; these formed tubular voids that served as

conduit for electrical wiring.

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Mom demonstrates how the mud was worked

into the forms. The work of lifting wet dirt was

much too strenuous for mom or pre-teen

Kermit, but both contributed to the project

however they could. Mom got a job with a

major hardware store, which allowed dad topurchase materials at a discount. When money

was especially tight, mom and dad sometimes

borrowed from Kermits newspaper route

earnings.

As the walls rose, the openings for

windows were roughly framed.

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The walls kept gradually rising,

6 at a time. Keep in mind that

each wet layer was poured into

place using ramps and an old

wheel-barrow dads strengthand stamina at that time was

damn near heroic! And he was

doing this on evenings and

weekends while working full-time

at a local rug mill!

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The walls were finally completed in 1952. Windows and doorways had a reinforced concrete lintels,

and the last course was a 'bond-beam' of conventional reinforced concrete. Dad finished framing and

sheathing the roof just as Eisenhower was elected for his first term. Years later he found the beercan that he toasted our new president with in the attic. Next came the composite shingle roof and the

exterior plaster and paint.

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Making things secure and weather-tight was vitalsince occupation was many months in the future.

This view shows the sheathing before painting, and

boarded openings. Note that the electricty is

already installed. The interior of the house served

as an enclosed shop where dad could both work

and safely store things between jobs.

The twelve-pane living

room window disguises

the fact that, except for

the bathroom window,

every glass pane in the

house is the same size.

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As with the interior floors, the front porch

slab was poured long after the walls went

up.

Here dad stands beside the two exterior doors. The back door

was purchased unframed, while the front was made by dad using

leftover pine sheathing and plywood. The large windows in both

doors were necessary for to provide additional indoor light.

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Dad adapted the ancient Roman hypocaust concept by using a system of iron pipe embedded in the

floor slab to serve as both concrete reinforcement and as a means to circulate hot water to heat the

house. A second water heater was used exclusively for this purpose.

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The big day came in November, 1954 when the DeLaurants finally

moved into their new home. Some of the interior rooms would not

be finished for many more months, but our family had written itslast rent check. And since construction was stretched over such a

long period, mom and dad were able to pay for things as they went

along not only were they now rent-free, but also debt-free!

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Dad never stopped making improvements and, insome cases experiments. Case in point: in the 1980s

he had a brief fling with the idea of backyard

hydroponic gardening. He put together this

greenhouse from salvaged materials and set up

surplus drums as a gravity irrigation system.

Unfortunately there were serious problems withmaintaining pH that dampened his enthusiasm, and

the greenhouse was left to slowly rot away.

In 2002 mom had a gardening crew remove several

dead trees and dads numerous junk piles, including

the decaying skeleton of the greenhouse. The workers

were surprised to find a rather large opossum living

inside. Five steel drums completely filled with used

motor oil, which he talked about recycling but never

did, required careful and rather expensive disposal.

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Another of dads household projects was an improved trash incinerator, constructed from firebrick

and a salvaged 50-gallon drum (he loved surplus steel drums!). The design worked so well that dad

looked into filing a patent, which was the purpose of these drawings. A friend did some research and

discovered that the basic concept was already covered by existing patents. Backyard trash burning

came to an end in the mid-1960s, due to air quality problems in the San Joaquin Valley.

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In the 1970s, dad pursued the moreenvironmentally-friendly practice of solar water

heating. Dads system used a parabolic trough

reflector to heat a blackened iron pipe, through

which water circulated to a storage tank by

convection. The whole system was constructed

from salvage for under $25, had no movingparts, and except for occasional resurfacing with

aluminum foil, required zero maintenance. It

was still in operation as late as 2001.

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In 2004 the house that Laurice DeLaurant built stood as solidly as in November 1954. Mom had a

new clay tile roof installed in 2003 -- this compliments the Spanish 'mission' look of dads original

design.

Dad couldnt have fully anticipated every consequence of his design decisions. He built for the long

term, but wasnt afraid to make daring choices -- some worked, some resulted in problems later.

Since he liked fixing things, such problems may not have been entirely unwelcome.

He made a special place for his family, and I will lay odds that it will still be here in 2054 -- which ismore than I can say for myself.

Thanks old man!