How to rehabilitate a tamped earth floor?
June 27, 2018 10:47 AM Subscribe
One of the rooms in my old adobe rental house has a tamped earth floor that has been neglected for many years. How do I best nurture it back to a happy, healthy, clean state?
I’ve lived in a house with a earth floor before, so I know the basics: sweep of often, and spritz it with water before sweeping to keep the dust down. A well cared for tamped earth floor is basically just like a concrete floor.
However, this floor has been slowly ground into dust over the years. It’s a bit cracked and crumbly, and it needs a VERY thorough sweep. Because it’s a little crumbly in places, and isn’t super smooth anymore, it makes more way more dust than a well cared for floor.
Any tips or tricks to make it more functional and livable?
I’ve lived in a house with a earth floor before, so I know the basics: sweep of often, and spritz it with water before sweeping to keep the dust down. A well cared for tamped earth floor is basically just like a concrete floor.
However, this floor has been slowly ground into dust over the years. It’s a bit cracked and crumbly, and it needs a VERY thorough sweep. Because it’s a little crumbly in places, and isn’t super smooth anymore, it makes more way more dust than a well cared for floor.
Any tips or tricks to make it more functional and livable?
A while back on a tour I visited a number of houses with modern earth floors and owners said their floors had several coats of raw linseed oil, with beeswax added to the final coat to seal the surface. Some of the floors seemed to have used a (cement?) pigment in the earth for a lighter effect.
posted by unearthed at 5:08 PM on June 27, 2018
posted by unearthed at 5:08 PM on June 27, 2018
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posted by hortense at 4:07 PM on June 27, 2018 [2 favorites]