Natural Clay Finishes
“One half of the world’s population – around 3 billion people – live or work in buildings constructed of earth”
Clay has been used for constructing houses for many thousands of years. It is an excellent, versatile and beautifully unique building material – your adobe home can never be duplicated, making it an original form of earth construction. Clay comes in a vast variety of colours and textures, and it is perfect for both interiors and exteriors. Its earthy tones and subtle surface variations perfectly complement the character and charm of recycled timber, and it is so malleable it can be worked into almost any shape. Clay offers your home a living surface which evolves as your home ages, further developing its character. It becomes even more beautiful over time.
Outstanding insulating properties. Clay has excellent insulating properties and when used in conjunction with proven passive solar designs its use results in substantial savings on heating and cooling costs. Any building constructed of a masonry product can be given a clay finish, and your home will stay a comfortable, almost constant temperature year-round.
A living surface. Clay can be scupted. A beautiful wine shelf. Clay suits interiors and exteriors.
Natural House Builder’s favourite and most cost-effective construction method for Adobe homes is to create a double frame (making a 200 mm or more thick wall) with recycled timber, then cladding this with old sheets of galvanised tin both inside and outside. These galvanised tin sheets are fixed horizontally so the ribs “hold” the clay render. This technique results in a rich, earthy appearance, a naturally insulated home, and a cost-effective building method. We also can use a hebel solution which we mix with clay to create shapes, blocks and bricks for strength.
Natural House Builders can also use hebel to bring to life truly creative designs. We carve shapes into hebel blocks as a group, and we then render those hebel blocks with clay in order to create curves and imaginative shapes. A great example of this method can be viewed in the Gallery under The Garden, a home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches built with Moroccan influences.
Before, during and after: a clay render transformation
Natural House Builders loves to work with clay from your site, or as near to your site as possible. This gives your home a real sense of belonging to its environment – almost as if it has organically grown from the earth. However, if there is none available onsite, or if it is not of high enough quality, we will always be able to source clay for you – often from a local excavation site, and people are usually more than happy to give away good clay.
We filter your clay through a series of onsite “baths” before applying by hand, and we always aim to keep your clay as close to its natural state as possible. This careful, ages-old process gives your home great character and integrity – a homes with clay finishes works with its surroundings, keeps you warm in winter, remains comfortable and cool in summer, and will provide you with a source of inspiring natural beauty all year round.