Has anyone actually seen a straw house. This one is actually made from straw bales. It is at the location of my ….and then he says “do you want some trees” thread. Several years back the owner put some tin on the roof in an attempt to preserve it. Last week when I stopped by to scout the score a little better, there was a gaping whole in the side. And all the new tin was on the ground. The owner showed up and said that a fire had burned through the yard ( I thought something looked different around there, but had been a couple years since I was there). Apparently a couple embers found their way into some of the cracks in the stucco. So he had to attack it with a loader tractor.
That's crazy. I wonder what the roof is supported by. Wouldn't want to imagine how many critters live in those walls.
A good friend while I was growing up lived in a home built by his hippy parents out of cord wood rounds, cement and glass bottles for light. Similar to this Cordwood construction - Wikipedia it was off grid and fun to hang out at. Some crazy ideas work out some don’t.
One of the local community colleges did this as an advertisement for “green building". The first winter the freeze and thaw cycle cracked the dung colored shell on one and let water in. That thing rotted from the inside out. Another one was built with wet, aka green bales. Everyone knows what happens when you bale before it’s dry. Our local educators are so smart they’re going to do it again and sent students(college students) door to door fundraising, Kinda wish I lived in town to answer that knock at the door. There will never again be a shortage of stupid in our world, not sure there ever was but now days it’s a guarantee. Owl
Supposedly there is one here in town...but I've never been close enough to tell for sure...it looks really nice.
This house is pretty old. And actually I don’t think it was that uncommon around here back in the day. The property owner that I refer to has a daughter in her early teens, so I’m guessing that puts him around 40 something. This is his mom’s home place where she grew up and I’m guessing that she has to be crowding 70
A Friends house is supposedly insulated with straw (pretty sure he said it was straw) only it's not stucco exterior but wood siding, kinda scary to think about an ember in there!
Aunt built one out of used tires filled with dirt.. for exterior walls, with nice southern exposure. It maintained heat well with mass. As tires settled over time; post and beam interior for 1/2 sized second floor developed rise in middle because outside beams were sitting on tires; which settled. No builders could tell her how to fix it. Our answer cut post by amount of settling.. all even
Stuccoed inside and out, encapsulating the bales, is how it’s supposed to be done. Taking shortcuts is what leads to failure. I was a builder for a long time and read quite deeply on this subject, both load bearing bale wall construction and in-fill (with post and beam for the structure).
I'd think post beam structures with straw bale insulation would be strong and have excellent insulating qualities. I remember they were treated with fire retardant in one show I watched on the building technique but don't remember the R Value.
Those bales still look fresh and mold free after 6 or more decades. I can tell you all the insulation was chit and moldy in my 60 year old house when I tore out all the walls (and at not nearly the R value). I'm guessing if the stucco had been maintained, the yard fire would not have breached the structure. Cool pics (besides the fire part), I've never actually seen one.
