Monthly Archives

July 2015

Where the Straw Bales Meet a Roof

By Uncategorized
Straw Bale Air Fin Detail

Note the tar paper “air fin”, a secondary barrier to air infiltration at the top of the bale wall

When we look at a building, we tend to focus on the finish details: the curve of a wall, the color and texture of the plaster, the tidy trim around a window or door, decorative mosaics, the feel of the floor underneath our feet. However, finish work is just one aspect of a good building. Often, little construction details go entirely unnoticed and unappreciated, yet it’s the details that can really enhance the actual performance of a good building. For example, unless windows and doors are sealed well, they may be an entry point for cold air or driving rain. And that’s a “feature” that no one really wants. Good window detailing is more or less invisible in the finished product, however, and it takes a lot of time to do well.

The top of a straw bale wall is another one of these areas that poses a great design challenge and a good opportunity to improve the overall performance of the house. This is true wherever two different materials meet. You need to consider the fact that the plaster will likely pull away from where it meets the roof surface as it dries and inevitably shrinks. This is a problem, because air will have a convenient point to infiltrate the wall, and that means decreased thermal efficiency. So what do you do? Ignore the problem, or address this issue from early on?

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Beginning Days of Our 2015 Straw Bale Workshop

By Natural Building Workshops, Straw Bale Building
Off Grid Straw Bale House Site

The octagonal straw bale cabin, site of our 2015 Straw Bale Workshop

Yesterday was the finale of our 2015 Straw Bale Workshop outside Berea, Kentucky. Our team of participants made it through a week of straw bale building, clay plastering, and more than our fair share of rain. Despite the far less than ideal weather conditions, everyone stayed remarkably upbeat and we achieved a lot of good work. Apparently even record-breaking rain couldn’t stop us from having fun.

I am so grateful to our top notch team of participants who joined us this year! Here’s a look back at some of the construction work we accomplished this past week.

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Straw Bale Lessons: Keep Those Bales Dry!

By Natural Building Workshops, Moisture, Straw Bale Building
Straw Bale Storage

Nice dry bales under a big roof for protection in storage is critical!

We’re mere days away from the start of our 2015 Straw Bale Workshop. This summer’s weather has been surprisingly wet — we’ve had some amount of rain at least every other day (if not every day) for the past two weeks or more. I’m hopeful that things will settle down by the weekend. If not, we’ll be able to cope, I do believe. At least the mushrooms are happy. This season’s high levels of rain have brought some important straw bale building lessons to the forefront.
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We’ve Got Land!

By Homesteading
Land: View to the South

Our new homestead site along Clear Creek in the Appalachian foothills

I’ve been greatly anticipating writing this post for a long long time. Today, I can proudly report that we are officially landowners! We’ve finally found and purchased a piece a property outside of Berea, Kentucky, where we’ll begin the exciting and challenging work of building a permaculture homestead community and natural building school. Getting to this point has been a long time in the making.

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