Straw Bale Houses

I just finished telling Yuccaflatsranch that it is time to start with the planning!
I have a friend who builds barns who will be keen to look over the plans as they get done

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UK 2005:Treasury Dept./Trade and Industry survey concluded: 3.6 m gay people in the UK/~6% of the total population/1 in 16.66
Biblical Argument for the Acceptance of Homosexuality

I've got that much straw around...I could build a HOUSE?

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My best,

Melissa

My house is 3200 SF and I originally bought 1200 bales to build 900 SF shop, 3200 SF house and I still have 420 bales on account at my local feed store. My guess it took about 550 bales for this house.

BTW - all straw bales are not "buildable bales". I had the guy doing the baling bale them as tight as the baler would allow. I had one of the bales blow off of my trailer twice on the trip home. All it did to the bale was round the edges at 70 mph. That is my description of a buildable bale.

OK, the reason I said it is not cheaper or easier is because the walls of a house typically cost only 10-15%, so your savings just isn't there, when you factor in the 2 foot wide footings!! The concrete is not cheap.

Then you have to design "window and door bucks" made out of wood, a bottom plate, top plate, etc etc etc. Not a big savings on wood, if any at all.

Often you must pay for an engineer along with architect, depends on where you are and how complicated you want the house.

A lot more work and planning because if you aren't doing it all yourself, then you basically have to train all the subs, or be on site all the time, as subs probably will be unfamiliar with the process. Plus way more labor intensive, and we all know what that means....$$$

So - Why do it??
Well the finished home will be about the most energy saving home you can get, unless your design defeats the whole point of strawbale, and believe me many do (all doors and windows, hardly any strawbale) .

If you pay attention to details and include a metal roof, it will be pretty fire proof, inside and out. (We lost everything in the CA wildfires, so this is important to us).

Many home designs are not well suited to strawbale. Work with the material or stay with stick built.

Square or rectangular, big overhangs or wrap around porches, small windows, smallish house, these are what makes strawbale work better than stick built, and when done right you aren't saddled the rest of your life with high heating/cooling costs.

If kept "small" it is owner built do-able, but you MUST understand stacking strawbales takes a couple of days out of many months of building. Much harder than it at forst seems.

We are only doing a 10x20 (inside dimensions) powerhouse right now.
There is way more to this than just stacking strawbales. lol

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You can't ride, til you get on....

"Then you have to design "window and door bucks" made out of wood, a bottom plate, top plate, etc etc etc. Not a big savings on wood, if any at all."

Not to much savings in wood, but windows and doors are one of the main reasons to investigate "Modified Post and Beam". Trust me - been there - done it, and I do have the t-shirt. We have been living inours for 6+ years.

thanks! ok I didn't think of stuff like concrete foundation because the property I was looking at has an old stone foundation just waiting to be built on roughly 20x25 which is a perfect start. Also helps to know people who build for a living and know inspectors... but the land ain't mine yet.
It also helps that I like and want it 'rough', hemlock is cheap and used a lot for building barns here.

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UK 2005:Treasury Dept./Trade and Industry survey concluded: 3.6 m gay people in the UK/~6% of the total population/1 in 16.66
Biblical Argument for the Acceptance of Homosexuality

Just thought i'd post a link to a cool PDF file I found, that may help people develop their plans. I'm sure there are many more local ones that address relevant building codes but still could be a useful starter.

http://www.strawbalefutures.org.uk/p...wbaleguide.pdf

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UK 2005:Treasury Dept./Trade and Industry survey concluded: 3.6 m gay people in the UK/~6% of the total population/1 in 16.66
Biblical Argument for the Acceptance of Homosexuality