A consulting client recently asked me what the best practice is for removing rotten straw from an existing straw bale house. Whether you need to replace a small amount of straw or an entire section of bales, the process is pretty much the same. Below are the steps to replacing rotten straw in an existing house. Although each specific location may have subtle differences, the basic steps are still the same.
In this post, I will teach you the most up to date and highest quality installation techniques for installing electrical service in your straw bale home. Knowing these techniques is important whether you plan to do the work yourself or hire a subcontractor to do it for you. Chances are that any electrical subcontractor you hire will have very little experience in straw bale installations, and may have never seen the new techniques I have created for simplifying and improving the installation of electrical services in your straw bale house.
The creation and acceptance of a straw bale building code in the INternational Residential Code and the International Building Code would be a huge step forward for straw bale construction. Please suppor the efforts to get the proposed code accepted.
Plastering a straw bale house is a skill that marries both art and construction techniques. There are so many details to keep track of when plastering your strawbale home and this article will give you one more piece of the puzzle. The focus is on the application direction of lime plaster, or any plaster for that matter. Mistakes here can cause plaster failure so it’s worth getting the process right. Furthermore, the plaster is what people see when they first view your straw bale house, so making it look good really matters.
There are so many details to a quality plaster job and so many places to make mistakes. The real question may not be whether to spray or to apply by hand, but rather, what steps need to be taken, no matter which application method is chosen, such that the plaster job will be successful.
There are so many reasons why I suggest you not build your house with the straw bales on edge. It’s hard to know where to start. I’ll just lay out the first ten that come to mind. 1. Strings on the exposed face mean no notching around posts and thus a thermal break at each […]
Proper framing techniques will speed and simplify your process. Follow these simple steps to get your frame erected quickly and much more easily than standard post and beam framing practices.
