Straw Bale building

[skier-hughes]

Where is the best place to read up all about this?
Are there any good companies who build for you?
If I did a course, could I then build my own? Is it that difficult?
I'm thinking of building my garage out of SB and as I need to put in a planning app for other work I'm getting this project on the front burners now.
Personal recommendations would be great. I've done some googling and reading.

Graham

 

[AMc]

http://www.amazonails.org.uk/ are the ones I've seen more or less everywhere including at Grand Designs Live last year.

http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/ is a good place to look as straw is oh so green.

 

[CHRIS]

The Straw Bale House

Athena Steen, Bill Steen & David Bainbridge

Is a good place to start but is from the USA, I am very dubious of so called courses as it seems to me a good way to charge people to build for you - there have been a few problems within the construction industry of this type of thing and also included Cob and rammed earth courses. I dont know about the ones AMc said but just beware. Think about it would you go on a weekend brick laying course and then try and build a house?

I know that strawbale in this country is more about infill than load bearing as the calcs can be a problem for load bearing. I would have a look at the new Sworders building in Stansted as it is a very large shed and quite similar to what you would be looking at (not that big unless you are Jay Leno).

http://www.sworder.co.uk/pages/new_saleroom.mhtml

http://www.sworder.co.uk/components/admin/image_preview.mhtml?file=/data/new_saleroom/5_1.jpg

 

[Penners]

The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) has all kinds of useful books, booklets, and factsheets, including stuff about strawbale building.

Have a browse down this page: http://www.cat.org.uk/catpubs/pubs_content.tmpl?subdir=catpubs&sku=PUBS_30&key=[sku]

 

[Stephen]

Perhaps a bit too late for this as it is only a few days away, but I know they run periodic courses on straw bale building.

http://www.assingtonmill.com/courses/straw-bale-building

 

[biffvernon]

Start with Barbara Jones Building with Straw Blales. http://www.amazonails.org.uk/?contentId=59
and the rest of Amazon Nails website is the best portal to all internet strawbale resources. Nice people (I know one of them).

 

[Manders]

Hi Skier,

Have you seen this?

http://bristolgreenhouse.co.uk/pdfs/jim_carfrae.pdf

Jim sometimes does talks about how he built it etc.

 

[Flyfisher]

Certainly an interesting project.

The following bullet points caught my eye though:

- Douglas fir not Oak
- Oak not really sustainable because of lack of mature trees in this country

I suppose the definition of "sustainable" is somewhat elastic.

 

[biffvernon]

Douglas fir is certainly cheaper and quite the appropriate material for that situation. I'm using a dozen Douglas fir trees in a low impact build at the moment.

 

[Schoolmarm]

At home? What are you building?

 

[Penners]

Yes, can we see it?

 

[biffvernon]

It's in another realm.

 

[Penners]

It's in another realm.

Ah - that'll be Lincolnshire then.

The reciprocal roof looks good. Bags I the bed closest to the walls on a rainy night.

 

[biffvernon]

Walls? Or yes, knew there was something we still have to do.

 

[Moo]

It's in another realm.

What a lovely faery story. Much better than the ones my mother used to read to me.

Thanks, Biff.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

How interesting Biff. Quite a bit different to your "usual" window and door commissions?!