If you have a smart phone and know how to use it, this is a simple procedure and texting me a couple of pictures is the easiest way to do this. One suggestion I give to my customers who may not know what kind of adobe they have is to take a picture of their adobe and text or email it to me. If you fail to determine exactly what kind of adobe you have, you will probably embark on a repair method or strategy that could do more harm than good. In this brief introduction to “adobe repair,” you can quickly understand why it is important that you correctly asses what kind of adobe you have before embarking on a repair/restoration strategy. This kind of adobe, though similar to mud adobe, is sufficiently different in nature as to require an entirely different method of repair and restoration.īesides burnt adobe, there is “asphalt stabilized mud adobe.” Then there is “cement stabilized mud adobe.” There is also “San Luis adobe” which, in appearance, is much different than any other kind of adobe. Here in Tucson where I live, 98% of all the adobe homes that I repair are not made out of this traditional mud adobe, but rather out of “burnt adobe.” There are at least two varieties of burnt adobe here in Tucson: Sasabe and Querobabi adobe. Often, regular cement mortar was substituted for the traditional mud mortar.īut this is not to suggest that all adobe homes were constructed from this kind of adobe. These earth bricks were then laid up into walls, using the same mud mixture as mortar. The wooden forms were removed and the bricks were again left to cure in the sun. Mud adobe is your typical adobe, or what comes to mind when someone thinks of the word “adobe.” It is a massive mud brick that was made from digging moistened soil out of the ground, placing this mud mixture in wooden forms, and then left out in the sun to dry for a specific time to harden. In general, when people think of “adobe,” they visualize the kind of adobe often romanticized in old movies and in pictures of settlers moving out west: mud adobe. This is not as easy as it sounds, because there are many different kinds of adobe homes.

Before attempting to repair your adobe home, it is critical that you first determine exactly what kind of adobe you have.

Adobemaster