Many people have recently asked me about landscape walls. I find this interesting as I’m planning a landscape wall workshop in the Spring of 2011 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s amazing to me how the Law of Attraction really works. Once I commit to something, things start to happen that would otherwise seem like coincidence. This is just another example of that in my life. Anyway, I’ve drawn up a cross section of a landscape wall and rubble trench foundation for you to check out below. This is a basic design that can be used in most locations. Some building departments allow for rubble trench foundations within the codes while others are less accustomed to them. Be sure to discuss the potential to use this design before you commit to the design. You may need to make changes to the system or simply educate the building officials around the effectiveness of the rubble trench design.
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Everybody likes different things about their house. Some people love their bedroom layout, others like their kitchen design, some are even huge fans of their bathrooms. Okay, the last one may be a bit unusual, but perhaps there’s a reason for that. I’ve noticed over my years as a builder that certain things tend to get overlooked in design. One is lighting plans. Most designs tend to ignore the layout of lights in the house and simply throw some lights on ceilings and walls at the last minute to meet code requirements. This is a bummer as much opportunity is lost in this way. Another place where opportunity is lost is in bathroom design.
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This is pretty cool: a solid core interior door made out of straw. With other straw products on the market for some time now, I’m happy to see that some of the larger, more mainstream companies are picking up the ball. I hope they run with it and run the right way. The new doors were officially announced on Masonite’s website in February.
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Congratulations to the Battle Lake Design Group for their 2009 Urban Design Award for Merit which was presented by the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. Here’s a description of the project and what the judges had to say about it as presented on the City of Edmonton’s website.
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Lots of people want the look of adobe homes when they build with bales.  The biggest risk to that is in the inset window details.  If this detail is not properly constructed, there’s a good chance, not just a small chance, but a good chance, that you’ll end up with water damage beneath your windows.  I’ve posted a sketch of a quality flashing and construction detail for this application that will help you ensure water tight seals around your windows.
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I recently received an email from a woman looking for quality employment with an architectural firm that works in green design, especially straw bale. She sent me her resume and some sample projects and I was very impressed with both. She’s a recent graduate from the University of Texas at Austin with a masters in architecture. Prior to graduate school she worked at Daniel Smith and Associates (www.dsaarch.com) designing and building with straw bales.

If you’re interested in learning more about her, please comment here and I will get you in touch with her. Again, her work is very unique and beautiful, in my opinion.

First of all, I want to extend a word or two of support and sympathy for our brothers and sisters down under as the fires of a heat wave have torn through their beautiful land. Having personal experience with wildfire, I know the challenges and hardships they can create. Several years ago, a roughly six thousand acre fire was stopped on my doorstep, literally. The crews were able to steer the flames and squash them down into a manageable slot and snuff them out just a few hundred feet from the front of my house. We were evacuated at the time, and I remember the impact of the flames and smoke on my family and my animals. I remember having elk in my field, something that does not happen around here, because the smoke had flushed them out of the higher elevations. I can imagine what our brothers and sisters in Australia are experiencing and I send my emotional support out.
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It must be something in the air. I have received a bunch of emails about building landscape walls in the last week. This after a long drought of such questions. So, I guess it is time to talk about them again. The majority of the questions I have been getting are around the foundation system and the restrictions of building a landscape wall with bales.
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I was recently told about some new research results that have posted on line. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has just published a report authored by Colin MacDougall called “Effect of Mesh and Bale Orientation on the Strength of Straw Bale Walls“. The report is co-authored by Chris Magwood and Steve Vardy.
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The following post is somewhat outside the current series on How To Be Your Own contractor; however, I thought the content of the email question was good and the answer would probably serve more than just the man who asked it.
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HI ANDREW, I HAVE THE THREE PART DVD SET AND WAS TRYING TO GET THE BALL ROLLING ON A 30X35 GARAGE W/ BONUS ROOM ON TOP.THE INSPECTOR WANTS TO SEE ENGINEERED DRAWINGS. WHAT DO I DO? THANKS FOR NOW. ROB
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The creation of your dream home starts long before you break ground. For most people, it starts in their imagination. Dreaming of the perfect house is fun and inspiring; however, all too often the end results are less fantastic than the initial dream. This is because the reality of construction costs and how they increase or decrease as a result of specific design elements are not often addressed in the dream stage. The video below discusses how creating an interesting design facade can actually increase the price of your house.
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I just received this email from a friend who is almost finished with his straw bale house. unfortunately, his house is not performing the way he would have hoped. As the email below says, there is still interior plastering, drywall taping, and caulking to complete. In addition, the foundation stem wall is not insulated which likely has a big impact on the performance. If any of you have personal experience with a situation similar to this, please comment here. Thanks.
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Today I received the following question and I thought it was worth sharing my response with you all. Here’s the question, my response follows:
“Well the time for using all this information is almost upon us. We are looking at a property at the moment to build on; however, it is quite a steep property. Do you have any ideas or photos of straw bale houses built on steep sites with out doing major earth work? Thanks in advance.
Regards Chris and Jenny”
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I often tell people the first step in building a straw bale house, or any house for that matter, does not actually take place during construction but rather in the design room. In truth, this is not quite accurate. For a really good design, the first steps must take place in the field during site evaluation.

Every site is different and therefore requires attention to different details. For example, does your building site have drainage concerns? Where does the sun travel during the day? How much organic material and fill will need to be removed from the site prior to construction? These and other questions like these need to be addressed early on in the design process in order to yield a home design that truly incorporates the house into the site. In the following video, I walk you through a sample site evaluation. This evaluation is obviously truncated for time, but gives you an idea of what is involved in performing a site evaluation. Take as much time as you can spare for the evaluation. You will be happy you did in the end.
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We have all seen images of the massive fires in Southern California. I would first like to send out my sympathy to anyone affected by the flames. I would also like to send out my respect and gratitude for the firefighters who risk their lives and give their all to defend the homes and lives of others. I have considered how to write about this topic over the last few days and I want to be clear that my intention is to support home owners in the affected areas, not judge them or tell them they have “done something wrong.” I want them to know about the incredible fire resistance of straw bale construction and how they can rebuild their homes with security built in. I have included a video at the end of this post which speaks to the fire wall testing data for straw bale walls.
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One drawback to straw bale construction is the thickness of the walls. That may not be something you hear me say very often, but in an urban setting, it truly is a liability. This is because most urban lots are small and do not have adequate space to hanlde the thick bale walls. The key to utilizing bale walls in an urban environment is smart design and clever construction. There is no reason why bale walls could not be used in most urban homes if th ehouse is designed well and utilizes th evertical lift of the lot in place of the horizontal sprawl. Building green means more than just bale walls as I have said before. It means using green appliances, glues, windows and more. It also means downsizing from the 3000 SF house to a smaller urban lot for many people. This well designed downsizing can then quickly become your asset and not simply a thick walled liability.

Greetings.

I have a farm in Trinidad, Colorado (although I live in Denver) and on it is an old house that I want to tear down. I would like to build a house that is so energy efficient that I can leave it with no heat in the winter and have no problems with freezing, etc. In other words, I want to create a cave-like environment where the temperature stays roughly the same as outdoors in any weather. Can a straw bale house achieve this goal? I have double pane, low e-glass windows in my farm house
now and would transfer them to the new house. Please let me know if this is possible with the straw bale construction.
Thank you.
Richard
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Richard,
The biggest aspect of this working is the design of the house. You will need to incorporate enough passive solar design to create a natural heat source for the home. Without any heat, the house will eventually equal the temperature outside, even if that is 0 degrees. If the house has passive solar design, it can generate its own heat by using the sun to warm interior floors and other heat sinks. That heat is then slowly released into the home and the4 bales insulate to such a high efficiency that they can contain that heat through the night. It is possible, and it will take some detailed planning and execution. Good luck.

Andrew

Do you live in a Tropical Rain Forest?

I am a big believer in the merits of straw bale construction. That’s probably obvious by now; however, there is one major drawback to working with bales: climate conditions. Bale homes are ideal for dry and mostly dry climates, acceptable in wet climates, and difficult to deal with in very wet and humid climates.

The big demon is not water, in the form of rain at least. In stead, it is humidity. Rain can be handled with proper design so even the wettest climates can accommodate straw bale structures. Humidity, on the other hand, cannot easily be designed out of a structure. It pervades everything and gets into everything. A bale house can stay dry from rain and still be saturated with moisture inside the plaster due to the acclimation of the bales to the area’s relative humidity. Everything eventually settles on a moisture content that is in direct relation to the relative humidity of its surroundings. Therefore, if the humidity is high, so too is the moisture content of your bread, your clothes, and your bales!

Let me give you an example, I used to live in Northern California, where humidity was often very high due to the coastal fog. My wife put her leather boots under our bed for a month and when she took them out, they were covered in green mold! Our house seemed fine and we surely did not expect to see that kind of mold anywhere near the inside of our house. But, the space under the bed is dark and has limited air movement, kind of like the space in between your layers of plaster.

What to do? Well, you must first consider if your climate is right for straw bale construction. If you have really high humidity and very little dry season each year, you may want to consider something other than bale construction. Another option is to consider mechanical help. If you install a whole house de-humidifier, you can minimize the amount of moisture in your house and therefore in your bales. Remember that when pressurized under normal living conditions, air moves out through the walls. If the air is dry, it is safe to pass through the walls. Systems like this can be installed into your HVAC system, if you have one, or can be stand alone units utilizing 4″ duct work.

Remember to design and build for the water and humidity. You not only need to design to keep water out, but also to allow it to escape should it get in (nature has a way of blowing even the greatest plans!) Plan for both, and you will be okay. Nevertheless, if you live some where that you think is too risky, ask for advice and then make whatever decision you feel is best around the use of bales in your home. And know that this is coming from some one who loves bale construction so I’m trying to talk you out of your dream!

Below is an email I recently received. I love to hear from different parts of the World and see that natural building is growing all over the World. I have hope when I see emails like this that change really can happen and it will happen from the ground up. Thanks for writing Ion!
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HELLO ANDREW!

I am an architect from Timisoara, Romania and I am interested in building with ecological and traditional materials. I considered straw bales first as a building material that is cheep and fast for the rebuilding of the flooded areas near Timisoara in 2005.

In 2006, together with my family and a group of architecture students, I helped build an experimental cob house, a project of a friend, Ileana Mavrodin, also an architect, who lived 12 years in Canada and came back to Romania with this initiative (www.casa-verde.ro). Among the participants there were two architects from Bucharest which are members of a group, Arhiterra, concerned with traditional and ecological building materials and techniques.

As you can see there are people interested in this way of building, theoretically, but there are not many examples, the movement being at its beginnings, other people are skeptical about it and the building codes don’t mention these materials and techniques.

I would like to thank you for your course and hope that I would soon share my experience in straw bale building with you.

Ion Trif

One limitation of load bearing construction is how much open space you can have in a wall as compared to the overall square footage of that wall. That may be true, but it does not mean that the size and shape of the windows and doors you add to the structure can’t be inspiring and exciting.
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