Strawbale house project

[john ferrigan]

Hi there, my name is john and I am on an adventure to find either land or woodland, so I can achieve my goal of  building a straw bale house. It would be great to chat with anyone who can give me any info. I am just at the start of this journey and would love to visit completed or in the process of building a strawbale house. I currently reside in limekilns nr Dunfermline. I am willing to travel to gain as much experience as possible. I hope this is not to much of a request. 

 

Many thanks 

John

[Redbeard]

Welcome.

 

I was going to suggest that you look to stay in a holiday let built of straw (I remembered one in - I think - E. Yorks) but I find from a search ('strawbale holiday let') that there appear to be several of them (or maybe just a lot of agents 'selling' the same place??), including a couple not far from Fort William.

 

Do you want to do load-bearing or timber-framed? There are arguments for and against each approach. I take it you already have Barbara Jones' book? There's a PDF of an earlier draft around too at https://baubiologie.at/download/strawbaleguide.pdf.

[john ferrigan]

I want to build a timber framed strawbale house, do you have any suggestions on who to speak with.

[joe90]

See @Redbeard comments above, when I was interested in building with straw I went on a couple of builds as a volunteer , very informative . 

[SteamyTea]

Not getting involved.

 

 

[saveasteading]

Welcome @john ferrigan.

May I ask what attracts you to straw?

[sgt_woulds]

If you are looking at building a house with natural materials like straw bales I assume you are happy to trade the low(ish) cost and complexity of the materials against the sheer amount of extra labour required?  

 

In which case, have you considered Cobbauge which would be similarly hands-on but not subject to the vagaries of straw bale quality and procurement?