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A tiny straw bale home for £10,000 in Poland The tiny cottage is load-bearing straw bale house with a sleeping loft under the straw thatched roof and earthen plastered walls. It stands on a stone footing, which in turn stands on a drained gravel trench. The walls were made of tightly packed bales of straw stacked and sandwiched between hazel branches for stability. A 'ladder' wall plate was placed on top of the wall and the structure was compressed with straps which are tied to anchor points in the foundation. The timbers for the roof structure were taken from the local forest. The roof covering was made by the local crafts-man, Henryk Romanowski using wheat straw thatch. Paulina teaches all over the world.
Grain Bin Cabin Plan This 1 bedroom, 2 bathroom 692 sf cabin will keep you warm in winter and cool in summer. It also has the potential to provide as many as 12 "berths" for use as a hunting cabin or such. Each berth could have its indiviual heat or A/C duct for greater efficiency. The basis of the design components is to put a grain bin inside a grain bin and insulate the space between them with foam. This makes the structure self-supporting, self-framing (no studs in the outside walls), thermally and acoustically broken (super-high performance), and maintenance free for fifty plus years. The shell is completely recyclable, can be built without concrete, added siding or added roofing. Don't want to use foam insulation or too far from an installer? Floor Plans Mark is offering 4 hours of consulting time with the basic cost of this plan, and this can be done before you receive the plans so that it is possible to have some custom alterations made.
Why Build With Straw Bales? Straw bale construction lends itself well to an owner builder project. Some of the applications well suited for straw bale include: a cottage, office, garage, studio, and an art barn. You don’t have to limit yourself to these smaller projects. I’ve created a great introductory video on why to build with straw bales. Reason #1 Energy Efficiency. A well built straw bale home can save you up to 75% on heating and cooling costs. Reason #2 Sound Proofing. Straw bale walls provide excellent sound insulation and are superior wall systems for home owners looking to block out the sounds of traffic or airplanes in urban environments. Reason # 3 Fire resistance. Straw bale homes have roughly three times the fire resistance of conventional homes. Reason # 4 Environmental responsibility. Building with straw helps the planet in many ways. Reason #5 Natural Materials The use of straw as insulation means that the standard insulation materials are removed from the home. Reason #6 Aesthetics
Footprint, The National Trust’s first straw bale building It's a beautiful and inspirational space. The low environmental impact development used local timber floors and walkways; an oak shake roof; clay and lime plasters; highly efficient glazing and sheep’s wool insulation. Hundreds of people lent a hand in its construction and hundreds more visited the building site on an organised event to learn about natural building. The interior wall which divides the open space from a small kitchen and store is built from traditional cob on the lower courses and then less commonly with cob blocks. 5 Easy to Grow Mosquito-Repelling Plants As the outdoor season approaches, many homeowners and outdoor enthusiasts look for ways to control mosquitoes. With all the publicity about the West Nile virus, mosquito repelling products are gaining in popularity. But many commercial insect repellents contain from 5% to 25% DEET. There are concerns about the potential toxic effects of DEET, especially when used by children. Children who absorb high amounts of DEET through insect repellents have developed seizures, slurred speech, hypotension and bradycardia. There are new DEET-free mosquito repellents on the market today which offer some relief to those venturing outdoors in mosquito season. Here are five of the most effective mosquito repelling plants which are easy to grow in most regions of the US: 1. Citronella is the most common natural ingredient used in formulating mosquito repellents. Citronella is a perennial ‘clumping’ grass which grows to a height of 5 – 6 feet. 2. Horsemint leaves can be dried and used to make herbal tea.
A House of Straw Beautiful Strawbale Home Cost Only 5000 Euros To Build! The page this came from is not in English, but construction is a universal language, and I speak strawbale :) Here we see cool dude cutting board... Then we see what he's making... woah! And that roofing pattern is simply stunning! Soo... you think that loft will work? Lunch time... natural foods 6 Alternatives To Bullet Lists Sharebar Bullets make lists of important points easy to read. When those near-perfect little circles are vertically aligned, readers can quickly process the text. Yet too many bullet lists in an eLearning course or slide presentation can be repetitious and mind-numbing. Learners and audiences need novelty to maintain and sustain attention. Here are six bullet alternatives you can create in any graphics program or in PowerPoint. Alternative 1: Use text boxes A simple alternative to a list is to place each item into a a text box that is arranged in a suitable layout. Alternative 2: Let icons do the talking Using the same text boxes as above, this approach adds icons to the words. These icons were found at Iconfinder. You can take this approach one step further by accentuating the graphic more than the words. These icons are courtesy of BuildInternet!. Alternative 3: Let People Speak Your List When you use people cutouts to speak your points, no one will suspect this is a list.
Toby And Liz's Strawbale Abode Toby and Liz's strawbale abode I thought I would put up a few pictures from the past. A couple years ago some friends of mine, Toby and Liz, decided to hold a "straw raising" party to get some help putting up the walls of their soon to be guest house out in the Arizona Desert. They needed to build the guest house first in order to have a place to stay while they built their main house out of tires. They did all of the tedious prep work and all the finish work. Toby and Liz built this casita the way everyone should...they let the building build itself. Here I am playing with chicken wire. After the first day's plastering. Notice shoulder high by the door you can see the large snake head that Toby is creating beginning to take shape. A finished interior shelf up high. Bed loft with skylight and cool window. Awesome little kitchen Here they made a really cool copper "skylight" around the opening for the chimney. The finished product. Photos by Monica Van Hall
A straw bale cabin by AATA Arquitectos This small cabin in a rural area of central Chile uses little energy and has a low carbon footprint. AATA Arquitectos designed the cabin, opting for a two level floor plan to minimize the site impact. The cabin takes the shape of a cube that is 5.4 m (17’9″) on each side. The walls were wood-framed and then insulated on the outside with straw bales coated with mud. Straw bales are a readily available local material and provide a very high level of insulation. The roof of the cabin is quite visible from the uphill portions of the property. The interior space is small but efficient. The comments are open. Images courtesy of AATA Arquitectos. Text copyright 2013 SmallHouseBliss. Thank you for sharing this.... Related Charred Cabin, a place to eat, sleep and read for two | DRAA Located a couple hours drive into the mountains north of Santiago, Chile, "Charred Cabin" is an appealingly simple vacation retreat. In "Modern Cabins" A modern "hermit's cabin" | Parra + Edwards In "Cabins"
Strawbale Redux Here is a rudimentary drawing of the floor plan done with Paint. Not bad for my first try! Basics-the exterior dimensions are 32 X 46 but remember, these are strawbale walls so that translates into actual interior dimensions of 28 x 42. For orientation, the house is on a nearly E-W axis. The house is a basic ranch but you may be wondering: Why waste sq footage in such a small house with that hallway? The wall between the LR and S BR will be adobe for thermal mass. We tried to design the house for the way we live. Another important aspect of the design was to have light coming in from 2 sides in every room. Building Stage: PlansThe plans are now back to the City for (hopefully) final approval. Until next time...keep your straw dry.
3rd day I am very grateful we are such a numerous group, there are a lot of tedious tasks that get done in one day. Filling bags with foam glass REFAGLASS is surely one of them: And more sharpening of sticks is needed - all done with a smile: The wood is protected with diluted linseed oil: Of course the main task was to finish the first vaults. Here is the last straw bale missing - two boards are helpful to let it slide in. The building is very precise, and everything fits well - at least after the last peice had been cut 4 times... Some pushing is still necessary: And a proper hammer is always of good use... The vaults are then strapped down - for tensile strength in case of pointed loads... After removing the form work - finished load bearing vault. Standing on the top of the vault - not budging at all: Happy participants cheering: Everything is harder when you do it at the wrong time - the airtightness paper should have been in before the bale vault was built. Four vaults got built today.