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How to Build Your Own Straw Bale House

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The Best Information I've Found for Straw Bale House Construction

It's not an easy matter to build a straw bale house -- or any house, for that matter. You do need some time, some money, and some basic skills.

Here are some questions specific to straw bale construction: How to deal with situations where your bale course is higher than the sill of your window? How to prevent your walls from leaning away from plumb? How to build so that your straw bales will be protected from all moisture once construction is complete?

I've seen people struggle with straw bale houses where they began with too little information. An unfinished straw bale house up the street from us was eventually torn down. You need good information, before you begin and for reference during construction.

The straw bale DVD shown here describes a step by step system describing exactly how to build a straw bale house -- from foundation to plaster. It's done by Andrew Morrison of Oregon, and it is crammed with a lot of information.

Now, I'm picky about how-to DVDs. I've had my hand in helping to produce over a dozen programs myself, helping my husband with ones that our business, Hartworks, created, on a variety of topics including natural building. I know how challenging it can be to get shots where the viewer can really see and understand exactly what you want them to.

I'm really impressed with how much information is packed into this program.

Click on the link below to read Andrew's sales page, which tells you all about the program. While you're there, you can also sign up for an email series called "7 Essential Steps to Straw Bale Success."



Photo credit: Andrew Morrison

Here's the Link I Just Mentioned

For Andrew Morrison's Straw Bale Post and Beam DVD

It's also available now for immediate download. Contents include:

Introduction
Selecting Great Bales
Retying Bales
Foundation Review
Framing Details
Installing Toe-Ups
Room Overview
Notching Bales
Stacking Bales
Strengthening Bale Walls
Tamping Bale Walls
Baling the Top Course
Creating Window Seats
Chainsaw Issues
Baling Tall Walls
Outside Corners
String Trimming
Wire Mesh Preparation
Creating Niches
Electrical
Window Flashing
Plaster Preparation
Burlap Patches
Wire Mesh Application
Sewing Walls
Mesh Around Windows
Kitchens
Aligning Wall Planes

How-to Guide to Building with Straw Bales
If you are at all serious about doing straw bale construction, this DVD set will pay for itself many times over... and if the program convinces you that straw bale building isn't your cup of tea, hey, get your money back with the full-year guarantee.

Why I recommend DVDs for Learning to Build Straw Bale Houses

If you are thinking about building a straw bale house, how are you going to learn about the process?

Books can only take you so far, though of course they are good to have around for inspiration and reference.

Attending a straw bale workshop is time consuming and expensive. It can be worth doing once you are sure that strawbale construction is in the cards for you.

But to my mind, the best way to learn about straw bale building is to get one or more informative straw bale DVDs, which you can watch more than once, share with family and friends, etc.

For a really useful series of how-to straw bale DVDs, I recommend the ones created by Andrew Morrison of StrawBale Innovations in Oregon. Andrew knows both how to build with straw bale (having created a 15-house complex must have helped!) and how to teach clearly, in a way that is understandable. My husband and I spent an evening with Andrew not long ago, and his enthusiasm for straw bale was tremendous!

What about you?

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Amazon Straw Bale Plexo: What Do You Think of These Books?

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Your Straw Bale Comments Welcomed!

  • cffutah Nov 25, 2011 @ 8:12 pm | delete
    interesting reading, enjoyed my visit on your lens tonight, squidliked it too.
  • favored1 Nov 14, 2011 @ 8:21 am | delete
    I hope to share this idea with my husband. Thanks.
  • thesuccess Nov 11, 2011 @ 5:37 pm | delete
    Hi I would have appreciated a section on why bales are used to build a house at all as I'd never even heard of this method.
  • hartworks Nov 16, 2011 @ 9:49 pm | delete
    Oh, I had forgotten to put a link to my lens that explains that... glad you caught the error. Scroll on down nearly to the bottom of this page and click on the link to Straw Bale Houses -- Beautiful and Ecological.
  • Tom Henerson Aug 10, 2010 @ 8:32 pm | delete
    Awesome. I love Andrew Morrison's DVD series. That along with a woodworking dvd and you're off to the races creating anything! Great recommendation and great Lens.

    Thanks.
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A Couple of Straw Bale Links I Like

Admittedly, I am not objective about these two!

Green Home Building: Natural Building techniques: Strawbale
Describes the use of stawbales for creating natural, sustainable buildings, with pictures and related resources of books, videos and links.

It's from my husband's website.
Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building Home Page
Geiger Research Institute of Sustainable Building promotes natural building, and sustainable design and development through research, training, education and consulting services.

This is the website of our good friend Owen Geiger. While it isn't just about straw bale building, Owen is a real expert on this topic.

Which of these YouTube Straw Bale House Videos do you like best?

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Environmental Building: Straw Bale Construction 1 point

2

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Straw Bale Home Construction Instructional Video 0 points

3

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The Straw Bale House: Paul Lacinski 0 points

4

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straw Bale Pavilion_Workshop I.U.A.Venezia 0 points

Andrew Morrison's Straw Bale DVD on Foundations

Second in the Series

You certainly want to start a straw bale house (or any house) with a good foundation!

Click here to find out about a DVD on how you can save thousands of dollars -- compared to hiring the work -- by creating your own concrete slab, with lots of details about exactly what to do.

This is also a DVD from Andrew Morrison, also available as a download if you have a fast enough internet connection.

Also Visit My Other Lenses on Straw Bale Construction!

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hartworks

I've hung out in a lot of straw bale houses. Here my husband Kelly and I are in the earthbag house we built.

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