building a straw bale house

Straw Bale Construction has been around for over a hundred years, and so few people are aware of its. Frankly, I like this book, despite my 2-star rating of it. book I've bought about Strawbale building. Copyright A tradition in recent straw bale buildings is to build a truth window at a special place in the buildings interior, since once your straw bale project is complete, it will be difficult to tel that the walls are actually composed of straw bales. Staples are typically faster than roofing nails, however, but whatever fasteners you use, be sure not to puncture the waterproofing membranes any more than necessary during lath installation. Framework is installed, including walls, floors and roof, Straw bales are installed between structural elements. Essentially, there are two ways to build a straw bale houseload bearing and non-load bearing. Moreover, during the last few decades, the United States has become increasingly interested in straw bale construction. Design decisions concerning the shape of wood trim and moldings, the texture of stucco finishes, the color of paints and stains, and the inclusion of built-in straw bale features like benches, niches, and truth windows define the unique personality and beauty of each house. Once the RBA is in place and any final adjustments have been made to the bale walls, these pins can by pulled out (vise-grip pliers work well for this task) to allow for the final positioning of the buck within the opening. About SBUK. You can sign up for a "Free Straw Bale E-Course". In order to give stucco strength, especially for load-bearing straw bale structures, good lath work is vital. NAPI harvesters are very knowledgeable about the requirements of building-quality bales and typically have a large quantity of bales in dry storage. It was an easy read and easy to understand. Other straws can also be used successfully, but as these have different properties from wheat or rice straw, you will need to do some research before considering them for use in building. After pinning the final course, you are ready to proceed to RBA installation, but first make a thorough inspection of the wall, patching gaps and seams with loose straw. Bend lengths of H 3 rebar to the shape of a large staple. The perimeter bale walls of a straw bale house are typically covered with stucco, but the interior walls areoften made of less bulky materials. A truth window says: This house is builtof straw.. Exterior and interior are given the final plaster finish. As it is not nutritious for cattle, a lot of farmers in large agricultural settings destroy it - sometimes by burning. It looks like WhatsApp is not installed on your phone. Frankly, I like this book, despite my 2-star rating of it. You must completely cover a bale wall with galvanized lath if the wall surface is to hold stucco. Drywall lifts and pulley jacks on rollers, if available, make quick work of hanging ceilings if labor is sparse. After you complete each course, jump up and down on the bales to seat them, and to compact the bale wall. Any moisture that finds its way into the bale wall from the sides or top will dram out through the gaps in the rigid insulation you will place between the plates and then be directed outdoors through weep holesshallow saw cutsthat are cut into the bottom of the outside base plate. It is important, however, to avoid overstuffing gaps, openings, and seams. Place this protective layer under the lath so it can protect wood items like window bucks from the water involved in applying stucco. There is a danger, however, of losing all the work that | went into a bale wall; if rain gets to your bales, you will be doing another bale-raising after removing the soggy bales and purchasing replacements. Corrugated metal is another durable option Stucco may also be applied on the gable ends. Brian Hodge developed the Anvil straw bale method, using his 30 years of building experience to design the best way to build straw bale houses. Your objective, here as elsewhere, is to create a trim design that sheds water. Add water immediately after you empty it. It may also be helpful to translate the part ratios listed below into other measures: bags of Portland cement, shovels of sand, 5 gallon buckets of water, and so forth. They build their homes using readily available materials in the building process. If you take this option, you can install a metal screed molding (for example a J-mold) around window and door frames, and wherever else the bale wall meets the ceiling and floor. We are using 3/4" T&G OSB with an exposure rating of 1. On the outside have either wood or brick, since the rain will cause the straw to rot. It is also the inspiring story of Red Feather itself, a tale of community action and cooperation that suggests a can-do solution to the growing housing crisis on America's Native American reservations. After being coated with stucco, bated straw resistant to fire. If care has been taken to attach chicken wire so that a sheet of diamond lath will overlap the chicken wire on each side of the corner, you will save yourself a great deal of patching and splicing. Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! It was an easy read and easy to understand. Visitors see an attractive, thick-walledbuilding, but they will most likely assume that you built it out of masonry or adobe as onlystucco will be visible. By using our site, you agree to our. Cedar is attractive whether left natural or covered with paint or stain. First bales of good quality must be sourced then the community-friendly bale wall raising event may ensue. A wide variety of stucco textures are possible for interior walls; on exterior walls, however, stucco texture should be as smooth (or as minimal) as possible in order to guard against moisture infiltration. Other options for interior walls include agricultual byproduct panels on a stud-framed wall system and post-agricultural building systems that provide their own support. Most non breathable paints will not disclose an Sd value as they can be much higher than 3. This means you will have fewer openings around which to lath and stucco, and will minimize the chance of leakage in the critical situation where you have gables above bale walls. Too much stuffing is as bad as not enough, and perhaps worse, because overstuffing can cause bulges that make applying lath difficult. Next attach the exterior base plates to the slab (over waterproof membrane) and fill the space between them with strips of rigid insulation left over from building the foundation. Flashing products only keep water out of the building when they are properly installed. Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2011. -- Resonance, Nov/Dec 2005. . If these first steps are done properly, the rest of the wall raising will go quickly and a better bale wall will result. In response to this, straw bale builders often incorporate a framedopening that shows a portion of the straw within a bale walla truth window. Compressed ag-bcard materialsmadefrom compressed straw and/or seed hullsmake great companions for straw bale exterior walls (available from PrimeBoard Inc., North Dakota). The first bales of the third course are now placed at the corners and on both sides of the bucks leaving about a 1 space (as with the door bucks) to allow for expansion. wikiHow is a wiki, similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. Smaller operations bale the straw to use as bedding for cattle and pigs.Building homes from baled straw is nothing new. For more than a decade the Red Feather Development Group, a volunteer-based organization, has built and repaired straw bale houses for Native Americans. Simply place the window in the opening, shim it slightly off the rough sill, fasten one corner to the buck and then level and plumb the window assembly. Used stickers may also be attached. As with other parts of straw bale construction, it is good to have a number of people around to help. Use a rubber hammer on the outside of the mixer drum to loosen clumps of stucco stuck to the inside. This is especially important on the top course. You may freely link Make sure you follow health and safety guidelines and regulations to avoid hurting yourself, helpers or children, etc.. Because of the uniqueness of straw bale buildings, it is critical to work with an experienced and reputable professional. What is leftthe stalks (or culm, to adopt the agricultural term)has little food value. Our straw bale building workshop gives you all the information you need to build your own straw bale home- from foundations to roof. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges. Straw bale construction is officially part of the national residential building code. This knowledge is not definitive, it is just here as guidance; always get a second opinion. Take care, though, to avoid over-tightening since this may unwind the lath itself or pull it from its point of attachment. You will need to talk builders in your area, and consult local building codes to determine what kind of foundations most appropriate for your site. Consequently, you will want to spend some time considering how to orient your house to make the best use of your building site. home improvement and repair website. Basically, you simply stack the bales into the wall formation that you would like. Step 1 Roekel and Isabel dug a trench to remove the topsoil and get to the sandy layer beneath, which is compacted and much steadier as a foundation. The finished home has walls 16" - 18" thick with an R factor of approximately 42 and the walls have a very high sound absorption quality. When Justin and Linda Tyers decided to build a straw bale home in Somerset, they purchased their plot for just 50k under Exmoor National Park's affordable housing policy. Using salvage for trim and other applications lowers costs as well as demand on tree-based resources. The straw bale wall is the heart of a Red Feather project and often the construction sequence that is least familiar to experienced builders. This is good news for bale construction because insects and animals have no interest in eating straw bale wildings. For a single-story, load-bearing bale home, trusses are a good idea for many reasons. When attaching chicken wire sheets near wall corners, be mindful of the width of the diamond lath sheets you have stocked, because your next step will be to fasten sheets of diamond lath around door, window, and corner areas. Add fibers (if used) per manufacturers instructions. Always consult a structural engineer where building permits are required, before building anything. The deep windows and niches are a common favorite, often providing enough depth to function as a seat or large shelf. Paints are rated in Sd values: Paints with high Sd values have are detrimental to the underlying surface, as they do not allow it to breathe and dry out. Various types of pins -bamboo, wooden surveyors stakes, saplings can be used; however, Red Feather typically uses high-recycled #4 rebar ends salvaged from reinforcing steel left over after building the foundation. Straw bales are installed between structural elements Electrical wiring and plumbing are installed and inspected. Wonderful Book for Nebraska Style Building! Some states, such as California and New Mexico have banned the building of straw bale homes. Once the base plates are laid out and positioned, a waterproof membrane is attached. Building a Straw Bale House the Red Feather way was very informative. Lay out your base plates using the same chalk lines you used to construct your Roof Bearing Assembly, If the lines are not clear, you will need to re-snap them. Try to select Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified lumber if it is available. Now I just need to gather the materials and bodies then get to work. If you are already convinced that you need a reasonable size straw house, you can just grab this guide and go. A 23-inch-thick straw-bale wall has an R-value of about R-33. For a typical 3-string bale wall laid flat to achieve a wall thickness of about 24, corner staples should be about 24 wide with right-angle legs that can stick 10-12 into the wall, so you will need to start with something close to a 4 length. Straw is from harvested grain stalks (never use bales of grass). Thus, before you install lath, make sure that any wood you will be covering with lath is first sheathed with a layer of house wrap. Whether left-over stalks of wheat, rice, or a similar plant are used, the nutritional port on of the grain has been extracted. For smaller structures with lighter loads, it may be as simple as a ladder built of 24 members that is then placed on top of your bale wall. Exterior plaster is installed - the final coat is installed later. Given adequate preparations in terms of group organization and safety, this work will go quickly and safely and represents a very satisfying team-building exercise for all involved. As stressed before, you must keep water out of the bale walls. Check site for proper location of materials and pattern of work flow. View our Privacy Policy here. Thankfully, commonly available, pressure-treated wood products now exist that are non-toxic and therefore far better for the environment and carpenters alike. As mentioned above, window bucks are usually installed on top of the second course of bales. A load-bearing, also sometimes called Nebraska style, denotes structure in which the weight of roofs and floors above the ground are supported, partly or entirely, by the bales. Low-Embodied Energy With asphalt roofing, however, you do not have the possibility of recycling the roof at the end of its life cycle, and your ability to harvest rainwater is diminished. A typical straw bale home, built by a contractor, will cost about 10-12% more than a conventional home of the same square footage. Mix:1/4 (to a maximum of 1/2) part type-S limeI part Portland cement3-4 parts masonry sandWater as required to achieve workabilitythat is, a consistently moist mixture that will keep its shape on a trowel.Optional: fibers per manufacturers recommendations. However, you will need a fair number of extra bales, since Red Feather typically makes a temporary, stair-type, straw bale scaffold beside one or more of the exterior walls. Installing a Roof Bearing Assembly is perhaps the most daunting and exciting part of a Red Feather project. Attach the bottom of one of these four L shaped pieces to the base plate at each corner, and then diagonally brace each on both sides making sure the corner guides are plumb. Straw bales, once rendered, have a very high fire safety rating.5. Fill water buckets to proper levels as indicated by the recipe. For simplicity, this article will not include instruction on the installation of services such as natural gas, electricity or water and sewer: It covers only the details about how to build the shell. This green and energy-efficient straw bale hybrid home was built to code. A layer of fine gravel is used at the bottom of the trench, and a standard 4-inch perforated drainpipe is laid. Book is in good condition. We are planning to build in the spring. If you fasten these sheets so they terminate in the channel portion of the screed, then their sharp ends will terminate in a screed channel and will be out of the way of future trowel work. It is easy for everyone to get excited when moving objects of this size, but if folks get moving too quickly, safety will be compromised. As a small thank you, wed like to offer you a $30 gift card (valid at GoNift.com). Less digging means less money, work and time as well as less concrete, all of which minimize disturbance to your topsoil and site vegetation. Indeed, straw bale homes are known to be very well insulated. Keep in mind that if you compare a straw bale home with a conventional home built the same R-value as a straw bale, the straw bale home will actually be less expensive by about 15% or more. Never be apprehensive about buying from them! Great Job in guiding the lay person. Bales are piled on top of each other and support the roof, which can be made from any conventional roofing material. References A strong, straight, and uniform RBA is a critical component of your straw bale house. They stay cool in the hot summer months and retain a good amount of heat in the winter months. The first task is to prepare a mixture of wet stucco. The flexible nature of the diamond lath allows you to make clean curved transitions where the corners of the window head (or sill) meet the walls. You will need four corner staples for each course except for at the first course which is held firmly in place by the traction nails in thebase plates. Post a copy of the stucco recipe at the mixing station. Next, its time to sheath the roof with plywood. Book cover may have minor to moderate wear. At interior and exterior corners you should apply full-width sheets of diamond lath. Use these corner staples to connect the two bales that make up each corner of a bale course, and reduce the likelihood they will be bumped out of position. plastering of walls completely until no straw is exposed, was very helpful to me. Red Feather also makes use of roofing with continuous ridge and eave vents, which eliminates the need for attic vents in the gable ends of the building. Ideally leave about a foot of bare bale wall exposed between the edge of the chicken wire and the wall corner on each side. Finally, trussed roofs are quickly erected and cost effective. For example, good sustainable cotton insulation is manufactured from factory scraps of blue jean material. On load-bearing straw bale buildings, you should not push the bales tightly to the plywood face of the door bucks. Our aim - To promote straw bale building and best practice within the sector SBUK is an association of: Practitioners Designers Academics Enthusiasts Trainers We provide a resource hub to aid you on your straw-bale building journey. Guess again. These corner guides will assure that the wall is plumb and square to its foundation. Also B, make sure the incoming-materials path does not cross the outgoing wheelbarrow path. Any LEGO-savvy kid intuitively knows the difference between stack bond (bales stacked directly on top of each other) and running bond (staggered or overlapped bales). The home would "pass" the test if the interior wall temperature remained below 250 degrees and no flames penetrated the walls. The book lays out information in the real world sequence of actual building. These ag-boards are typically fastened to conventional stud-framed walls (made up of Forest Stewardship Council Certified lumber whenever possible). I read it in one afternoon and have the concept down pretty good. Except in localities with excessively humid climates,such as the Gulf Coast and the Hawaiian Islands, straw bales an appropriate technology. Questions of a Do It Yourself nature should be Three will shovel, measure, and prepare materials (sand, cement, lime, etc.) Be sure to spend time with local building officials when planning to build a straw bale home. wikiHow is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together. Enjoy! The bales must have a moisture content of less than 15% and ideally less than 10%. Bear in mind that you should make an effort to center window and door assemblies as perfectly as possible within the frame of the buck. You will need a specialized group of tools, and a few hard working helpers to do the mixing. It is recommended that the straw bales be given a coat of natural earth or lime plaster.Cost of construction is about half of a normal build out. There are also dimensionally stable compressed straw bale blocks to consider (O-blocks by Oryzatech, California).The leaner dimensions of these products make them ideal for interior partitions or for projects in regions where super-insulation is not required. Your homes position relative to the land on which it sits has significant effects on its beauty and thermal efficiency. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 221,546 times. Permits: Get the relevant planning and the required building permits. The. Using bales for staging, and a lead spotter to direct traffic, a small group of people can quickly pass individual trusses to a couple of wall walkers on top of the RBA who, in turn, ran move along raising and bracing each truss. submitted to our "DoItYourself.com Community Forums". Also, it helped to have a complete list of materials. Bales are compressed to minimise settlement and movement. However, roughly 7% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide stem from the manufacture of Portland cementa major component of most concrete mixtures. American technology. Once the layers of chicken wire have been covered with diamond lath, they will provide space for the stucco to engage in the lath. If at all possible, you might want to visit the land in different seasons, and talk with neighbors who have experience placing buildings in the vicinity of your site. The quality of insulation is dependent on several factors such as building design, type and quality of plaster used, the mesh manner between the roof insulation and the bales, and how you stack your bales. Here, Red Feather provides a step-by-step, easy-to-follow manual for would-be strawbale buildersindeed, they supply everything you'll need but time, energy, and lots and lots of straw. Wood burns at 500 degrees, and at the temperature the straw bale wall was subjected to, steel would buckle.A wind test was also conducted, in which the equivalent of a 75 mile per hour gale didn't move the wall even one inch. A load-bearing straw bale house uses straw bales as the primary structural support,. Will Insulating Attic Flooring Increase How Much Weight It Can Support? Refer to regional venting codes to be sure that your venting area is sufficient. It will be a Nebraska Style Strawbale (load bearing bales). In such cases, small rectangles of diamond lath are cut 2-3 larger than a given electrical box in both directions. Complete work on the base plates by providing traction nails to prevent the bales from moving from their seats atop the base plates. Those not fortunate enough to have drawn a better job get to carry the sections up the bale scaffold steps and lift them into place.When a large number of people are working on installing an RBA, it is best to designate one spotter as the only person directing traffic. Get started right away with our FREE 16 Day e-Course. (The first straw-bale houses were load-bearing, built with nothing but common sense as a guide.) All rights reserved. Work toward an even, uniform surface with no big bulges or indentations (except for the occasional decorative niche) However, do not be too rigorous about creating a very flat wall, since part of the beauty of a straw bale wall comes from its picturesque surface irregularities.Raising a bale wall is usually a satisfying and (if you are successful in gathering together some | helpers) a fast-moving experience. Does anyone have experience building a golf green in their yard? A quality roof, quickly built, ensures that your bales will be dry during construction and for the duration of their life.The design of the roof a simple gable structure with no valleysis about as straightforward a roof as you can find. Pool trowels are able to create the gradual contours and corners natural to straw bale buildings. Use galvanized pneumatic staples, however, to fasten lath sheets to wood components such as plates, RBA surfaces, and window and door bucks. Be advised that some three-string baling machines produce bales that vary slightly in height, and that the length of the bales in any batch will probably vary by at least four inches. Straw products: Straw bales are typically too thick to be used for interior walls; however, a bale wall between your building and a future addition would give you a handsome deep doorway, privacy, and good thermal and acoustic separation. The roofs simplicity is important for ease of construction and low cost. "The policy allows plots to be sold . One will oversee the quality and quantity of the stucco being used on the walls, and communicate stucco demand and quality control issues back to the mixing loamAny additional workers should be added to those on the wheelbarrow detail. Help workers anticipate material and water needs for subsequent batches. Will you build with conventional drywall or useone of the many agricultural byproduct materials now available? Red Feather installs cedar trim around door and window frames, and along the floor as a baseboard. The more people you can round up to help you do this, the better. Compression will expand the bales into this gap and any remaining gaps can be stuffed after the wall has fully compressed. This practice saves lath material and time because it creates the fewest inter-sheet seams, and joins finished edges which are easier to stitch together. There are several factors to consider here: local customs, potential views, windbreaks, existing roads and infrastructure, existing utilities locations, the warming path of the sun, as well as your preferences and intuitions. When the wind speed was increased to 100 mph, the wall moved a barely measurable 1/16".How Are They Built?Before you run right out and buy bales of straw, check with the building code of your state and county. About a century ago, after the advent of hay-baling machinery, farmers in tree-scarce Nebraska developed a way of building homes with baled straw. Paints with an Sd value less than 0.1 offer adequate breathability for most straw bale/plaster applications. When the wall is complete, you will fit these same bags -again filled with loose strawin the openings between the top of a window buck and the bottom face of an RBA to provide consistent insulation as well as backing for the lath that runs from the top of the bucks up to the RBA You must finish all straw stuffing before any lath is applied to the walls. Fasten the rest of the window frame to the screed boards already in place within the window bucks. Asphalt shingles of high quality are, if carefully installed, a less costly alternative. First, they can be made with smaller dimensional lumber, allowing for a strong, lightweight roof system Second, the lumber used in wood trusses typically comes from smaller, second growth, or plantation timber sources. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Red Feather has also been able to enlist community artists in adding mosaics, murals, and wall relief sculptures that give character and beauty to a straw bale building. Also do not apply any stucco that has been out of the mixer for more than V/2 hours; such stucco should be discarded. HOWEVER - do recognize that some things in this particular book are no longer used in SB building, such as chicken wire outside the bale walls. The process of tying sheets of lath togetherboth chicken wire and diamond lath is comparable to making a quilt out of different pieces of fabric And, as in quilt work, this tying together is the most onerous part of lath work. The first step is to install screedsa screed is a piece of material that provides a guide, like a small dam, which tells you how deep you have applied stucco when you can no longer see the lath substrate. Great Job in guiding the lay person. Like the rest of the buildings at Dancing Rabbit, the wood used in its construction is mostly reclaimed from local barn and house demolition. In the interest of exercising some quality control during lath work, it is a good idea to have someone with experience insure that the lath is being properly installed. This facilitates interior trim application, and improves the appearance of the windows and doors once they have been finished and trimmed. May have minor to moderate highlighting/writing or dog ear pages. Previously a Fulbright Scholar in North Africa, he studied design at Stanford University and has a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Each spotter needs to have a 24 about 10 long to steer and push sections this way or that while they are being positioned. There are other materials used in the construction of a straw bale house such as concrete foundations and a timber built roof. Note: Pressure-treated wood must be used for all wood directly in contact with concrete foundations and where wood may be exposed to water. Draw up the floor plan. In fact, it is possible to knock a bale wall down (and the people standing on top of it) with a runaway section. In this video, you can see how we built complete STRAW BALE HOUSE. How to Tell if You Need Vertical or Horizontal Drywall Installation, How to Build a Soundproof Partition Wall Part 2, Health Benefits of Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers. But since we learn something new on every building project, and as straw bale construction is in a remarkable phase of growth with new and better techniques being invented each season, at this time we can only give you a recipe for Red Feathers bestbuilding so far, mindful that we will no doubt have further improvements to offer after these pages reach the press. Care must be taken to provide a breathable finish for the walls, especially for the exterior. Typically Red Feather uses conventional wood framing within the gables Gable faces may be finished in a variety of ways. This is a great how-to book. Add loose straw to gaps to assure a consistent layer of insulating straw throughout the bale wall Loose straw on the deck is a safety hazard, being both slippery and flammable. Wish I had bought this book first! We use the infill process as an example: Construction is straight forward. Lath, base screed for stucco coats, and the metal coil straps that connect the plates structurally to the RBA all will be fastened to the exterior base plate. This provides a double layer of chicken wire over the waterproof membrane protecting the top of the buck. While this is being done, frame the gable end walls. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/5\/5b\/Build-a-Straw-Bale-House-Step-1.jpg\/v4-460px-Build-a-Straw-Bale-House-Step-1.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/5\/5b\/Build-a-Straw-Bale-House-Step-1.jpg\/aid489058-v4-728px-Build-a-Straw-Bale-House-Step-1.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":306,"bigWidth":728,"bigHeight":485,"licensing":"