Karim headed down to Canberra in August for a 4-day straw bale working bee, along with about 24 other volunteers, to help construct the first straw bale house in Canberra. Straw bale is a very appealing construction method for us in Tassie because of its thermal insulation properties. The slab, posts, beams and roof were already in place, so by the end of day one a whole main wall of straw bales was already in position.
If the house is designed according to straw bale construction, the width between posts and the height between beams should be calculated according to the width an heights of the straw bales, which avoids cutting straw bales to fit and obviously speeds up the construction process dramatically.
Once the bales were in place, they were secured with metal brackets, then large needles were drilled through the bales and tightened with wire.
The last step was to trim the excess straw while having a good chinwag with fellow volunteers, before spraying on the mud and clay render.
And at the end of a hard day’s work earth building, there’s nothing like sharing your camp site with the locals.
This is definitely the kind of initiative we would like to adopt when we eventually build in Tassie – giving people the opportunity to learn how to build their own earth home while getting your house built at the same time!
If the house is designed according to straw bale construction, the width between posts and the height between beams should be calculated according to the width an heights of the straw bales, which avoids cutting straw bales to fit and obviously speeds up the construction process dramatically.
Once the bales were in place, they were secured with metal brackets, then large needles were drilled through the bales and tightened with wire.
The last step was to trim the excess straw while having a good chinwag with fellow volunteers, before spraying on the mud and clay render.
And at the end of a hard day’s work earth building, there’s nothing like sharing your camp site with the locals.
This is definitely the kind of initiative we would like to adopt when we eventually build in Tassie – giving people the opportunity to learn how to build their own earth home while getting your house built at the same time!
