Straw bale house conctruction is shown in this movie trailer for the "Building With Awareness" DVD video. Straw bale walls, thermal mass walls, earth plaster techniques, and passive solar design are all explained in this how-to DVD on building with natural materials.
This video is extremely entertaining and informative! I had no idea that a home so beautiful could exist.
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IMPORTANT MUST SEE!!! What if you could build a Monolithic dome with 2,600 sq ft of living space, costs 10% of a the average home to build, and provides protection and efficiency from its 24in thick wall? Watch “A HOME FIT FOR ROYALTY”
But… is it zombie proof? (I say this because I’ve been playing miecraft and fallout NV a lot recently)
@allahtakesituptheass ..????
@sookiestackhou
@allahtakesituptheass … not true. it will burn, dear, burn!
@sookiestackhouse2u
Ever tried to burn a phone book? Same principle. The material is so dense that there is insufficient oxygen to support combustion.
what a fire hazzard.
I am from Russia, and in my area people build houses from a mixture of mud and straw, and cover it with bricks on the outside. They are very warm. It is very interesting for me to watch Americans build similar homes, and inspirational as well, of course! thank you
@stodd32: Ha ha ha!
@starkneked: Well that takes away the purpose. LOL.
How much are we really looking at for a straw-bale luxury cottage home?
I wonder what the best straw really is? I hear a lot of really good things about hemp straw but I take it that it is about impossible to get. It is supposed to be moisture resistant and about mold proof. I wonder if papyrus would make a good bale for building?
how do these take to fire……..wires in the hay seems shady…..
true about seeds and rodents. where i am form sometimes the hay has to be baled early, as weatehr is not always so freindly for baling, and such is sometimes bailed rather “green” ive seen one of those stationary balers in action, and t woulda have been alot more work to do a straw house back then than it is now. understanbly a lot easier and cheaper than finding and transporting sparse and labour intensive timber.
I believe I read about the homes in NE in THE STRAW BALE HOUSE by Steen, Steen and Bainbridge. That part of NE isn’t too far from where I live. I’m sure prairie grass is all they had for hay at the time. It’d be a hell of a lot faster than sod, which is in short supply there. It’s all sand! A good well is only 10′ deep!
And the big bad wolf! ha ha!
Hay also has seeds and other things of nutritional value, which is conducive of things like insects and rodents finding them tasty. We put our hay up on the very dry side in these parts, just enough moisture to keep the leaves and heads on. I’ve never put it up with a moisture level high enough to promote mold or fermenting (heating). I’ve read that when those homes in NE were cut into to add an addition, the horses ate it like candy. This stuff was put up with horses and a stationary baler!
it really depends how dry the hay bales are, generally when bales are stcked, they are still a little damp, which is how some hay shed fires start, i agree hay is expensive, i will be building with straw when i build. (also hay is much messier as the strands of grass withing are much finer) i would be interested to see photos of some of these older straw bale constructions in nebraska, as i have read a bit about them.
Quite a few homes were built in the early 1900′s in Nebraska out of hay too! Hay works fine. Hay is expensive. Straw, not so much… By the way, the homes in Nebraska are still being lived in! I’ve been a hay and straw producer a good part of my life.
little pigs little pigs
its not hay bales is straw bales, theres a difference here. straw generally is the dead stalks of some kind of crop, and is entirely dry allready when compressed into bales. hay bales are usually made from long grass that has been cut down green, dries for a couple of days and then bailed, and usually still has a moisture content. building ya straw bail house with freshy bailed hay would be a rathe rsilly idea, but building with straw poses no danger at all providing the are not damp.
in this video the straw bales take no structural load, but straw bale constructions are entirely capable of being a load bearing surface.