Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

This little piggy wanted to build a house of straw

Backatcha Bandit said:
There's one near me:

http://www.sustrust.co.uk/building.html

It's beautiful, comfortable and cheap. :)

It's rendered with lime and the framing is done with recycled timbers - even the roof is made of recycled materials! :cool:
Click to expand...

There's one in the valley down the road from us. Also very beautiful. Actually I think it's that one!! :o :o I was talking to my neighbour about straw bale houses the other day - If we could get PDC to relax its ridiculous planning regs I think straw bale building could really help in the housing crisis.
 
madzone said:
There's one in the valley down the road from us. Also very beautiful. Actually I think it's that one!! :o :o I was talking to my neighbour about straw bale houses the other day - If we could get PDC to relax its ridiculous planning regs I think straw bale building could really help in the housing crisis.
Click to expand...
Is there a surplus of straw though? Wet summers seem to have created a shortage even for normal uses. I guess they could bring back long-stemmed cereal varieties and provide an additional life-line for farmers, or let them grow straw for building-blocks on set-aside land. That could work. :)
 
ymu said:
Is there a surplus of straw though? Wet summers seem to have created a shortage even for normal uses. I guess they could bring back long-stemmed cereal varieties and provide an additional life-line for farmers, or let them grow straw for building-blocks on set-aside land. That could work. :)
Click to expand...

Good point and if the summer's continued in the same vein it might mean there would be a deficit of straw. However, being the eternal optimist I'm assuming that this summer was a 'blip' :)
 
madzone said:
Good point and if the summer's continued in the same vein it might mean there would be a deficit of straw. However, being the eternal optimist I'm assuming that this summer was a 'blip' :)
Click to expand...
My dad was forced to sell up a few years ago, and it was a problem then. I was really only guessing that it still would be now, but all the same factors apply. :(

Since stubble burning was stopped, the varieties have been getting shorter and shorter and the machinery chops it up finer and finer to mulch back in rather than go to the trouble of baling it up. When I was a kid we'd spend days helping to get the bales in and stacking them to the roof. More recently, farmers round our way pretty much only ever do enough straw to meet their own needs and any regulars who get their orders in on time.
 
ymu said:
My dad was forced to sell up a few years ago, and it was a problem then. I was really only guessing that it still would be now, but all the same factors apply. :(

Since stubble burning was stopped, the varieties have been getting shorter and shorter and the machinery chops it up finer and finer to mulch back in rather than go to the trouble of baling it up. When I was a kid we'd spend days helping to get the bales in and stacking them to the roof. More recently, farmers round our way pretty much only ever do enough straw to meet their own needs and any regulars who get their orders in on time.
Click to expand...

It's pretty much the same here. However, would an increase in straw bale building mean there was enough demand for farmers to start growing straw commercially? I don't know much about arable farming.
 
madzone said:
It's pretty much the same here. However, would an increase in straw bale building mean there was enough demand for farmers to start growing straw commercially? I don't know much about arable farming.
Click to expand...
Arable farmers will look at just about anything right now. The small guys have been earning less than the interest on their farm overdrafts for 10 years now. They're getting swallowed by the conglomerates, but they have nothing else to go to. Making yourself redundant at 50 isn't a choice most want to face any sooner than necessary. :(

If straw made a profit over and above the machinery and labour costs to bale it up and shift it, they'd do it - and they'd grow longer stemmed varieties and take the extra cutting blades off their combines too. The more ways to diversify the better - they can't all open up Play Barns and Farm Shops.
 
i saw an episode of grand designs in whic the family featured built their house with straw. i was expecting a hippy shack but it turned out to be a very beautiful house. it looked fiddly but not very complicated.
im sure of you google it or look on CH4 website you'll find somethign about it
 
Better get building quick. If it catches on then before you know it Barratt and Bovis will have got in on the act and cornered all the straw on the market.
 
No lack of straw round here. Absolutely fields of the stuff.
Will check out up towards Aberdeen/Alford area tomorrow.
 
crustychick said:
check out Amazon Nails - they are really cool.... you can probably go and volunteer and help out on any projects they've got going on if you want to get some hands on experience, and they'll be able to give you *any* advice you might want - although they do charge a consultancy fee...
Click to expand...

Its terrible having your very helpful posts ignored crustychick :D tho must admit amazon nails sounds like dodgy american nail parlour :D
 
muckypup said:
Its terrible having your very helpful posts ignored crustychick :D tho must admit amazon nails sounds like dodgy american nail parlour :D
Click to expand...

hehehe - yeah, maybe... but I did say they were very cool - some people.... honestly... ask for advice... :rolleyes:

;)

:p
 
crustychick said:
...
check out Amazon Nails - they are really cool.... you can probably go and volunteer and help out on any projects they've got going on if you want to get some hands on experience, and they'll be able to give you *any* advice you might want - although they do charge a consultancy fee.../
Click to expand...

I was going to plug them as well. I went on one of their courses recently at Hackney City Farm - where people are in the process of building a straw bale class room. It was really good and Barbara who ran the course has also done a book on building with straw. I'm sure people at the farm would be happy to talk to you as well.
 
eoin_k said:
I was going to plug them as well. I went on one of their courses recently at Hackney City Farm - where people are in the process of building a straw bale class room. It was really good and Barbara who ran the course has also done a book on building with straw. I'm sure people at the farm would be happy to talk to you as well.
Click to expand...

the people at Hackney City Farm are friends of mine! :cool:
 
crustychick said:
it is my ambition one day to start a housing co-operative and construct all the buildings out of alternative building materials such as straw and cob, maybe some timber, use eco-friendly insulation, hemp-and-lime, and have it for educational purposes etc... tis a long way off.... still, I've just about completed my MSc in environmental architecture and I intend to travel round Europe for a few years helping outon eco-build projects.... one day one day...
Click to expand...

This is what I was involved with... 6 years in a housing co-op, mortgages underway, 6 fukn years of council meetings about supporting getting planning permission (we were in Oxford (:rolleyes: ) and all on the housing register / single homeless), working with architects, going on courses (we were looking a lot a Walter Segal who can be matched with other techniques such as straw bale around the timber framing) and then... and then... Nothing. All over. Sigh. :(

Anyhoo, good luck to everyone! Sounds like a lot of hard work and preparation is going in for people (spesh you, Crusty) which is the basis of these things succeeding... :)

<bad fairy flies off>
 
crustychick said:
some people.... honestly... ask for advice... :rolleyes:

;)

:p
Click to expand...

and again i apologise.

i've been trying to read the stuff that people have suggested and have almost finished penni's book which has been interesting.

had to spend a fortnight away from the comp at a course though, which has delayed things.

and i dont have any dosh so its all a pipe dream really.

does anybody have the Serious Straw Bales Building book that i could borrow?

wiskers
 
right so i've finished the Straw House - and my overall impression is that she should have given the damn trailer back! ;)

it was good food for thought though, and i found that i didnt actually much like her style of house, but thats cool, she's an american living in a desert so she's bound to do things differently than someone in the damp west country. it made me laugh when she encountered puddles - we have lots of them :D

i liked the idea of having a mezzanine, but then i've always wanted one of those.

i wasnt so sure about the load bearing walls thought, i think i'd always thought i'd have a timber structure (??oak), and theres no way i could live with a metal roof. tiles, or something recycled would do (i like the idea of recycled tyres).

am probably going to buy the another book later to read, a bit more specific to the uk.

thanks penni that was fascinating :cool:

wiskers
 
It's the load bearing bit that makes me think as well. I have a thing about floors giving way :o and the next house I live in will have to be one that I feel safe in.
 
no no no - you can *definitely* have load bearing straw walls!!! defo defo defo....

much better than just having em filling in...
 
Glad you enjoyed it :)

tbh although I enjoyed it too, there were bits that irritated me - I didn't much want to hear about her boyfriends - not in that context anyways!:D

and yeah......she had a right nerve hanging on to the trailer. AND how lucky was she to have parents who could afford to dole out huge chunks of cash to a middle aged daughter?

It is fascinating tho....like the beaten earth floor idea a lot.
 
chymaera said:
Grand Designs has featured two straw based houses, neither have been super houses, (quite the opposite.)
Click to expand...

They've hardly been 2 up 2 downs though have they?
 
crustychick said:
no no no - you can *definitely* have load bearing straw walls!!! defo defo defo....

much better than just having em filling in...
Click to expand...

That's a relief :)

(she says even though she can't afford a bale of straw let alone a house full :D)
 
infact filling in a timber structure is a bit more annoying and difficult.

if the walls are load-bearing then they get compressed which makes em stronger and tougher, hold their shape better, provide better sound and heat insulation, and you can let em settle in then render them...

much more difficult to do with a timber frame in place...

course - depends on how high you want your walls...

I like rammed earth walls... they are teh sexy :cool:
 
crustychick said:
infact filling in a timber structure is a bit more annoying and difficult.

if the walls are load-bearing then they get compressed which makes em stronger and tougher, hold their shape better, provide better sound and heat insulation, and you can let em settle in then render them...

much more difficult to do with a timber frame in place...

course - depends on how high you want your walls...

I like rammed earth walls... they are teh sexy :cool:
Click to expand...

*sigh*

All I want is enough money for a little house and a little bit of land. I don't want anything fancy schmancy - just pretty and something that I can feel secure in....

These days that really is too much to ask isn't it? :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Numbers
How to catch a squirrel in the house?
2 3 4 5
Replies
139
Views
2K
AverageJoe
AverageJoe
Hollis
Council want to stick a tree outside my house
2
Replies
46
Views
1K
ID47
I
Elpenor
  • Poll Poll
Would you have a water butt at the front of your house?
2 3
Replies
79
Views
2K
Orang Utan
Orang Utan
newme
Refusal of retrospective planning for moveable dwelling - tiny house
Replies
19
Views
776
Mr Joyful
M
Cloo
The holy grail of water bottles
2
Replies
49
Views
647
maomao
maomao
Back
Top Bottom