This is by Ian Winduss, a participant at the 2011 Australia workshop. It is really nicely done and I wanted to share it with you all. I hope you enjoy it!

And here’s one by Dell Weingarten as well. Another perspective!

And yet another by Davina Turner.

Straw House Building Slideshow: Davina’s trip from Karoonda (near Tailem Bend, South Australia, Australia) to Marama (near Pinnaroo) was created by TripAdvisor. See another Pinnaroo slideshow. Create your own stunning free slideshow from your travel photos.

That’s a pretty general question, I know, but I meant it to be that way. The reason is that if you have any plans to build a structure, you can benefit from my new Be Your Own Contractor Training Program. Okay, so that was a bit of a sales line, true, but it is the products that I sell that allow me to spend my entire day focusing on straw bale details and creating free content for the website. It is, after all, my job! (Be aware that the rest of this blog entry does indeed talk about the BYOC Training. If you don’t want to know about it, sorry for the shameless promotion of the product!)

Okay, back to the training. Although called the Be Your Own Contractor Training Program, this 7 disc set will help anyone interested in building whether you plan to hire a contractor, build it yourself, or if you land somewhere in between those tow. There is so much detail in the program that I won’t bother to go into it here as it would take up too much space and I’ve already written it all down on the BYOCTraining website. You can learn all about the details at www.BeYourOwnContractorTraining.com. There is a lot of FREE information on that site that is worth a read, if nothing else, so please do visit the site.

Like I said, if you have any plans of building, this program is something you really must buy. The amount of money you spend on it is absolutely nothing compared to what you will save. Currently listed at $149.99, you can either buy yourself a cup of coffee every day for 2 months, or you could learn the tips and secrets that will save you literally tens of thousands of dollars on your project. Your call.

I am launching the initial sale of the product this Friday morning and will be offering a sales price of $99.99 (even less than 2 months of coffee!) for the first 300 people who buy. I hope you will be one of them. You can sign up for an advanced notice to get you into the sale on Thursday by joining the E-Course at www.BeYourOwnContractorTraining.com or simply visit that site on Friday morning to get started. One quick note: I will be giving away a $500 gift certificate to the Real Goods Catalog for one lucky winner out of the first 100 people who purchase the 7 disc set. Buy early to be enrolled in that drawing!

Building a straw bale house on top of a concrete slab is certainly the most common system employed; however, it’s not the only way to go. If you have reason to build a raised floor system, you can. In the photo to the left, you’ll notice the change in grade from one side of the picture to the other. That’s a great reason not to build a slab as the amount of either back fill or concrete would be insane to make it work as a flat slab. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to each type of construction, as with anything in life, so let’s take a look at some of those now to help you decide what is best for your build. (Remember, there are lots of other options too from earthen floors to pole structures. Don’t get stuck in the belief that you have limited choices. The largest limitation will likely be the building department, not the fact that you’re using bales for your walls.
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Hi everyone. I think it may have been a long time since some of you have had a chance to review my straw bale minutes on YouTube.com. I haven’t spoken much about them recently, but there are a lot to check out. Start by clicking on this link to see some of the most popular videos. I hope you enjoy them.

I was recently invited to be a guest on the Jefferson Exchange, a popular morning talk show here in Oregon and California to discuss straw bale construction. The program is an hour long and covers many aspects of building with bales.
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On November 16th, I wrote a blog entry about retying straw bales, the new way! The new way is to use the Miller’s knot instead of the trucker’s hitch which has been used for years. In the first half of this two part entry, I showed you the basics of how the knot works and why I use it on all my straw bale homes. In this entry, I have included a video that shows you, in depth, how to tie the knot….well, you know what I mean.
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photo credit: www.extremeinstability.com

I have been asked many times in the past and once again recently how straw bale houses perform in high wind environments. The answer: extremely well. I can go on about this in written form, but I honestly don’t have time today as I am busy finalizing a house in town and also have recently started a new framing project I need to get a handle on. So, without further delay….Check out the following video for a more complete response to this question.
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Retying bales is one of the most important techniques on a straw bale construction job site. You will be required to retie many bales over the course of the construction and each retying episode will take time. It is not a fast process to retie bales so every step that can be done more efficiently will impact the overall timeline of the job. In the following video, the first in a series of two, I teach you how to make two bales out of one bale with speed and accuracy. I also talk about spreading the bales and other details that will save you time and energy.
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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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I recently received the following question from a visitor to my blog named Pat. I get this question and variations of it quite often. Here is the question:

I have a house built in 1911, the wood frame is 2×10 and 2×4 pine construction the wood is now so strong that a nail must have a pilot hole drilled first. Is it possible to add additions to this house using straw bale construction and tie the two together somehow? I live in Minnesota so I love the high R value of bale construction. I had also thought about completely encompassing the whole house and slowly removing the exterior of the existing house. The purpose would be to allow us to live here while we are building the additions. If you have done this how did or would you do it?

Here’s my answer
The idea of wrapping the house in bales is a common one and sounds like it would be a good idea in Pat’s climate. I have attached a video below that discusses three of the major areas of concern when working with wrapping an existing house with bales.
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There are a lot of myths out there about straw bale construction. There are people who will tell you that homes built with straw bales will encourage rodents and other pests. They may also warn you against the high likelihood of fire in a straw bale home. Perhaps they would even go so far as to suggest that straw bale houses cannot hold their value over time. The naysayers are around, and that is not likely to change anytime soon; however, you can find out the facts for yourself by watching this video below. Don’t rely on those who would speak false information as if it were truth. My goal with http://www.strawbale.com is to get the truth about straw bale construction in front of as many people as possible.

The above video is a short clip about the myths of straw bale construction. It quickly sums up some of the biggest myths. Like those mentioned above, and counters them with facts about the reality of straw bale construction. At the end, there is a 3 minute (or so) slide show with music through some beautiful straw bale homes. I hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome to the “Building Green” podcast. This is my monthly Q&A session where I answer your green building and straw bale construction questions.
This month I answer the following questions:
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OK, I have a bit of a treat for you…an online video showing you exactly what’s in my Load Bearing DVD Production. In fact, this video does a great job showing you each of the steps in the 6-day load bearing building process I cover in detail in my DVD production.
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The time has come and we have finally released the new instructional DVD on how to build a load bearing straw bale structure. This production has been a long time in the making and I am really happy to be putting it out there for you. I’m sure you have all heard a lot about the DVD already and what it covers, so I won’t go into that again here. If you want to take a look at what’s covered please click the following link:http://www.strawbale.com/dvds/load-bearing.html
I do want to tell you about some special offers that I am including in today’s sale.
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Sorry it’s been a while since my last post. The strawbale.com team just came back from a much needed break. We took our kids skiing over the Spring Break vacation and had a blast. Dicken Weatherby, the web guy for strawbale.com, and I had a chance to chat about the advantages of Load Bearing Straw Bale Construction. Dicken brought a small digital recorder with him so we were able to record the conversation.
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Welcome to the March 2007 “Building Green” podcast. This is my monthly Q&A session where I answer your green building and straw bale construction questions. Sorry it has been so long since I uploaded a Q & A podcast. I have been super busy putting together a brand new Load Bearing production and writing a straw bale construction field manual. This month I answer the following questions:
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I recently posted a new “straw bale minute” video clip in which I argue that bale walls don’t breathe the way they have long been described as breathing. There is a divided crowd on this one. My understanding of how bale walls work is that the plaster is too thick to allow moisture to move through it. That does not mean that moisture laden air does not still find its way in and out of the walls.
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I hope you can forgive the following marketing! I am close enough to completion on two exciting projects to make an announcement today. In the next few months, we will be releasing a new DVD which will give step by step instruction on how to build a Load Bearing Straw Bale structure!
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Welcome to the December 2006 “Building Green” podcast. This is my monthly Q&A session where I answer your green building and straw bale construction questions. This month I answer the following questions:
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I recently had a chance to catch up with Kelly Lerner, a Green Building Architect who won the United Nation’s “World Habitat Award” in 2005, to chat about her work on the Chinese Straw-Bale Energy Efficient Housing Project and her upcoming book on Green Building.
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