RammTeck. Bringing the past into the future

So its almost the end of a new year and all we have done is work like crazy . Running up and down from Hoedspruit to Gauteng at least twice a month We have completed our first residential units and they are awesome in Hoedspruits hot climate we have managed to build a building that controls its temperature so well, just a few minutes in these buildings and you are energized to go back into the heat. The simple design we used to maximize space internally has left us with huge rooms and an awesome entertainment area with a very large kitchen  This unit has six bedrooms four full bathrooms  two kitchens and two lounges both units take up around three hundred square m We were lucky enough on the site to get the exact line up with the setting sun in the summer to reduce heat absorption  on our north wall an important factor in such a hot climate all late morning  and early afternoon sun is kept off the walls in summer In the bathrooms it wa...

Well, I don't know where the year has gone but Rammteck has made some good progress on the sites in Acornhoek close to Hoedspruit. We closed for the holidays in December with one wall in place, just to get an idea of what to expect in the new year. These buildings are totally unique in that they are different to anything we have done before, but also follow our theme of elongated curved buildings.  We were tasked with designing a building that could house up to 6 people or two large families; these are the initial plans that were drawn up. So, the task was laid out; two 250 m2 buildings with all finishes in less than six months. The foundations and ramming went up in good time. Then accommodating the large openings for the sliding doors.   Window and door boxes were made on site for the sliding doors and windows. When the shutters come off it is always such an awesome mo...

 An exiting new project for Rammteck with finance from the Buffelshoek Trust. These new buildings will form part of the staff housing for Acorn to Oaks School. We have followed our traditional model of hiring staff from the local communities, t o be trained and construct the buildings for us. The people from the local community that turned up for the interviews. We hired 26 new staff and were ready to start when the first hurdle arrived. This was the engineer who decided a platform was necessary to level the site for  run off. This little process from start to finish lost us a full 3 months, 2 weeks for the engineer and  two and a half months for the earthworks. While the staff waited for the platform to be completed they built a guard house u sing the new knowledge they had acquired from our training program. Guard house The earthworks people still at work and we started laying out the site. Al...

Rammed Earth (pisé) rammed earth walls are constructed by ramming a mixture of selected aggregates, including gravel, sand, silt and a small amount of clay, into place between flat panels called formwork. Traditional technology involved repeatedly ramming the end of a wooden pole into the earth mixture to compress it. Modern technology replaces the pole with a mechanical ram. Stabilised rammed earth is a variant of traditional rammed earth that adds a small amount of cement (typically between 5 and 10 per cent) to add strength and durability. Stabilised rammed earth walls need little added protection but are usually coated with a permeable sealer to increase the life of the material – this varies with circumstance and there are thousands of unstabilised rammed earth buildings around the world that have given good service over many centuries. Most of the energy used in the construction of rammed earth is in quarrying the raw material and transporting it to the site. Use of on-...

Rammteck was formed as one of South Africa's  first rammed earth building companies . Not only to promote the art and science of building in rammed earth but to get out there and design, engineer and build it cost-effectively. To bring rammed earth from the status of a "forgotten art", not practiced  in South Africa , into the mainstream of the building industry. Rammteck rammed earth is now a modern, structural, load bearing, durable, waterproof, beautiful, artistic, breathing, green, cost-effective, environmentally-sound building material. There is an inherent attraction of rammed earth walls to most people. Nearly everyone who sees a rammed earth wall, and almost certainly those seeing one for the first time, walks up to it and touches it or rubs it, since it is such a tactile material. All people comment on the attractiveness of the look and feel of a rammed earth wall. When walls are being built and the raw earthen materials are laid out on site most people fin...

Rammteck gauteng pilot project Our first rammed earth project in gauteng

Rammteck KZN pilot project This is one of the documentaries on our buildings just a repost on u tube very informative