Post by olathejane on Apr 5, 2007 14:40:14 GMT -5
Have any of you ever looked into strawbale housing here in the KC area? It has only recently come to my attention and about 3 days later there was a show on KCPT about it. I'm finding the possiblility of Strawbale Homes a real interesting alternative. I'm including some links to a couple of sites and I hope some of you at very least enjoy looking around! Come to think of it, I'll just include the email that was sent to me by my friend in Ohio. That'll at least get you a intro to the topic! Click on the links. They are extremely interesting! ~OlatheJane
Strawbale housing
This one is near and dear to me. My brother and his gf built a straw bale house and you wouldn't believe how nice it is. The window sills are a foot deep. It's a lovely home.
Building a straw bale house is the most energy saving and healthiest building option available today. Here are some of the incredible benefits of straw bale:
· Imagine having a $10.00 heating and cooling bill month after month....What would you do with the extra money you save each month?
· Dramatically reduce the risk of allergies from airborn molds, pollens, and toxins....Straw bale walls dramatically reduce the amount of toxins introduced into the building envelope.
· Enjoy the silence of a truly sound-proofed home.... You will be amazed at the acoustic privacy in your straw bale house.
· Straw bale houses offer 3 times the fire resistance of conventional construction....Sleep well knowing that you live in a house that naturally protects you and your family.
Strawbale - Building insulated homes with bales of straw.
Straw-bale building has burst onto the owner building scene with a vitality not matched since the early 70's when people were first introduced to the possibilities of adobe or pise building (building in mud).
Owner-builders (read...those of us with insufficient funds to compete in the rat-race) have come to realize that straw-bale building has some advantages that were not harnessed with mud-bricks.
Firstly, straw is a magnificent insulator. Mud is a conductor. Straw-bale houses are said to be super-quiet, and extremely well insulated. In fact it has been said that they are so good that it is easy to over-heat a house, even in winter.
Secondly, straw-bale houses are even easier to erect than mud-bricks. The infill walls go up faster, and the unit cost per sq. metre is almost certainly lower.
Thirdly, straw bales are easily shaped, trimmed, cut, and re-sized. For example: Need a new window? Get out the chainsaw and cut a hole in the wall, and put the window in. Chainsaw building was never possible with mud-bricks.
· Straw is an excellent building material: It is inexpensive, readily available, and easy to work with. If you could stack blocks and smear mud when you were a kid, you can build a straw house!
· Straw is a RENEWABLE RESOURCE: It takes one season to grow, versus many years for a tree. It is considered a waste product in the grain industry: Burning off fields is a major source of air pollution, so building with straw helps the planet in more ways than one.
Building with straw bales became popular in the midwest with the advent of the mechanical baler in the late 19th century, and some of those houses are still standing. www.timetobale.com
Straw bale construction uses baled straw from wheat, oats, barley, rye, rice and others in walls covered by stucco. Straw bale are traditionally a waste product which farmers do not till under the soil, but do sell as animal bedding or landscape supply due to their durable nature. In many areas of the country, it is also burned, causing severe air quality problems. It is important to recognize that straw is the dry plant material or stalk left in the field after a plant has matured, been harvested for seed, and is no longer alive. Hay bales are made from short species of livestock feed grass that is green/alive and are not suitable for this application. Hay is also typically twice the price of straw. www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/strawbale.html
Straw bale building construction has recently become popular with people looking to build an inexpensive, ecologically sound house or other structure. Straw bale construction was devised in the mid-1800s in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, and some straw houses are still standing in the American midwest. Such houses have been built recently in the United States for as little as $4 per square foot. Straw bale construction is not just straw bales, of course. Left exposed to the elements, a straw house would soon be a sodden mass of rodent-infested fibre, or a heap of ashes resting on the foundation. The trick to preserving a straw house is to stucco it – inside and out – with concrete. This gives a level of fire resistance double that required in Canada. www.life.ca/nl/45/strawbale.html
www.life.ca/subject/housing.html
So you'd like your own homestead, but cookie-cutter 'burbs give you the willies. Well, here's the Straw Bale Construction antidote. The cure for all those ugly Tract Mansions? Might be building houses out of materials we live close to. The cure for big heating and lighting bills? Might be paying attention to the sun and the lay of the land. The cure for owing the rest of our lives to the bank? Might just be to knuckle down and do some or all of it ourselves. Let Chizz and Pignin lead the way... www.moxvox.com/straw.html
Straw Bale construction has over 100 years experience in America. Recently many new efficient homes have been built with bales of straw. This page brings some of the net available information together for educational purposes. solstice.crest.org/efficiency/straw_insulation/index.html
Strawbale Design & Construction Consultants: Gary Nicholl founded StrawBale Australia in 1996 after almost a decade of research into the revival of straw bale construction in North America and Canada. www.strawbaleaustralia.com/
Straw bales have been used to build houses in the U.S. for over a century. Two types of strawbale construction have historically been built: Nebraska style, where the stacked bale walls bear the weight of the roof structure; and post-and-beam construction, which is then infilled with straw bales. Modern use of strawbales in house construction also uses a third, mixed method, which combines the two methods mentioned above with standard stud construction. Mixed construction strawbale houses may have one post-and-beam wall, two Nebraska style wall, and one stud wall. www2.whidbey.net/lighthook/sb.htm
Since shelters have been created, straw and grasses have been used in conjunction with a variety of building methods to provide safe, dependable, and comfortable housing in many climates and environments. Walls made from tied bundles of long lengths of straw, stacked in mud mortar, have been constructed for centuries throughout Asia and Europe. Another ancient method, also employed in Asia and Europe, used compacted loose straw coated with a clay slip for walls. Those methods and materials remain in use today, their use declining only where modern construction methods, materials, and codes have become commonplace. ifib41.ifib.uni-karlsruhe.de/studis/straw_bale/gruppe_0/history.html
Strawbale housing
This one is near and dear to me. My brother and his gf built a straw bale house and you wouldn't believe how nice it is. The window sills are a foot deep. It's a lovely home.
Building a straw bale house is the most energy saving and healthiest building option available today. Here are some of the incredible benefits of straw bale:
· Imagine having a $10.00 heating and cooling bill month after month....What would you do with the extra money you save each month?
· Dramatically reduce the risk of allergies from airborn molds, pollens, and toxins....Straw bale walls dramatically reduce the amount of toxins introduced into the building envelope.
· Enjoy the silence of a truly sound-proofed home.... You will be amazed at the acoustic privacy in your straw bale house.
· Straw bale houses offer 3 times the fire resistance of conventional construction....Sleep well knowing that you live in a house that naturally protects you and your family.
Strawbale - Building insulated homes with bales of straw.
Straw-bale building has burst onto the owner building scene with a vitality not matched since the early 70's when people were first introduced to the possibilities of adobe or pise building (building in mud).
Owner-builders (read...those of us with insufficient funds to compete in the rat-race) have come to realize that straw-bale building has some advantages that were not harnessed with mud-bricks.
Firstly, straw is a magnificent insulator. Mud is a conductor. Straw-bale houses are said to be super-quiet, and extremely well insulated. In fact it has been said that they are so good that it is easy to over-heat a house, even in winter.
Secondly, straw-bale houses are even easier to erect than mud-bricks. The infill walls go up faster, and the unit cost per sq. metre is almost certainly lower.
Thirdly, straw bales are easily shaped, trimmed, cut, and re-sized. For example: Need a new window? Get out the chainsaw and cut a hole in the wall, and put the window in. Chainsaw building was never possible with mud-bricks.
· Straw is an excellent building material: It is inexpensive, readily available, and easy to work with. If you could stack blocks and smear mud when you were a kid, you can build a straw house!
· Straw is a RENEWABLE RESOURCE: It takes one season to grow, versus many years for a tree. It is considered a waste product in the grain industry: Burning off fields is a major source of air pollution, so building with straw helps the planet in more ways than one.
Building with straw bales became popular in the midwest with the advent of the mechanical baler in the late 19th century, and some of those houses are still standing. www.timetobale.com
Straw bale construction uses baled straw from wheat, oats, barley, rye, rice and others in walls covered by stucco. Straw bale are traditionally a waste product which farmers do not till under the soil, but do sell as animal bedding or landscape supply due to their durable nature. In many areas of the country, it is also burned, causing severe air quality problems. It is important to recognize that straw is the dry plant material or stalk left in the field after a plant has matured, been harvested for seed, and is no longer alive. Hay bales are made from short species of livestock feed grass that is green/alive and are not suitable for this application. Hay is also typically twice the price of straw. www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/strawbale.html
Straw bale building construction has recently become popular with people looking to build an inexpensive, ecologically sound house or other structure. Straw bale construction was devised in the mid-1800s in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, and some straw houses are still standing in the American midwest. Such houses have been built recently in the United States for as little as $4 per square foot. Straw bale construction is not just straw bales, of course. Left exposed to the elements, a straw house would soon be a sodden mass of rodent-infested fibre, or a heap of ashes resting on the foundation. The trick to preserving a straw house is to stucco it – inside and out – with concrete. This gives a level of fire resistance double that required in Canada. www.life.ca/nl/45/strawbale.html
www.life.ca/subject/housing.html
So you'd like your own homestead, but cookie-cutter 'burbs give you the willies. Well, here's the Straw Bale Construction antidote. The cure for all those ugly Tract Mansions? Might be building houses out of materials we live close to. The cure for big heating and lighting bills? Might be paying attention to the sun and the lay of the land. The cure for owing the rest of our lives to the bank? Might just be to knuckle down and do some or all of it ourselves. Let Chizz and Pignin lead the way... www.moxvox.com/straw.html
Straw Bale construction has over 100 years experience in America. Recently many new efficient homes have been built with bales of straw. This page brings some of the net available information together for educational purposes. solstice.crest.org/efficiency/straw_insulation/index.html
Strawbale Design & Construction Consultants: Gary Nicholl founded StrawBale Australia in 1996 after almost a decade of research into the revival of straw bale construction in North America and Canada. www.strawbaleaustralia.com/
Straw bales have been used to build houses in the U.S. for over a century. Two types of strawbale construction have historically been built: Nebraska style, where the stacked bale walls bear the weight of the roof structure; and post-and-beam construction, which is then infilled with straw bales. Modern use of strawbales in house construction also uses a third, mixed method, which combines the two methods mentioned above with standard stud construction. Mixed construction strawbale houses may have one post-and-beam wall, two Nebraska style wall, and one stud wall. www2.whidbey.net/lighthook/sb.htm
Since shelters have been created, straw and grasses have been used in conjunction with a variety of building methods to provide safe, dependable, and comfortable housing in many climates and environments. Walls made from tied bundles of long lengths of straw, stacked in mud mortar, have been constructed for centuries throughout Asia and Europe. Another ancient method, also employed in Asia and Europe, used compacted loose straw coated with a clay slip for walls. Those methods and materials remain in use today, their use declining only where modern construction methods, materials, and codes have become commonplace. ifib41.ifib.uni-karlsruhe.de/studis/straw_bale/gruppe_0/history.html