After seeing problems in a few straw bale buildings, I’ve been thinking about this lately: is it a truly durable building system? By which I mean, will a straw bale house measure its lifespan in centuries rather than decades? I’ve concluded that most will, some won’t. The ones that won’t are predictable, however, and for the most part they break the rules. Architects occasionally design straw bale homes with no roof overhang, for instance. I’ve seen this twice, and in both cases an overhang was added before construction was completed. In one of them there were already some moisture issues
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Window shaping in straw bale homes: a how-to and slideshow
Window curves are one of the most distinctive features in straw bale homes, and are often a big consideration in the choice to go with straw bale over other forms of construction. But information on how to shape curves is sparse, so I thought I’d share some of what we’ve learned over years of doing bale work. The first thing you really need to think about is radius of curve. To visualize this take a string nine inches in length, pin it at one end and attach a pencil to the far end. Now draw a quarter of a circle
Continue readingStraw Bale Building checklist
Recently my friends asked me for advice on building a small straw bale building (a garage with a living space above). They asked me how it will compare, timewise, to conventional framing. The answer: it will definitely take longer. They will save money on materials (some) but it will only be worth it if they really want the extra insulation value. They do, and they want to try building with bales as a test run for a future house. Also they want to use post and beam anyway, which means they need some kind of secondary wall system – for
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