Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 41Jan 09, 2010 7:26 pm Thudd - I wandered in here out of interest and will definitely stay to see how things go. You should consider documenting this - imagine if this sort of home building caught on. What a legend Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 42Jan 09, 2010 10:10 pm ** double post: found a link that reminded me of you http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... oxide.html Quote: Paint away the carbon dioxide GROWING grass on your roof and other attempts to make homes carbon neutral are mere "green bling". So says Rachel Armstrong of University College London (UCL), who suggests that her smart paint can turn buildings into carbon sinks. Armstrong created the paint by dissolving salts and esters in oil droplets. Repeated coatings react with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to produce calcium carbonate - which is the main constituent of limestone - and alcohol. The resulting "biolime" will provide extra strength and insulation, she says. How much CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere in this way has not yet been tested. Armstrong wants to adapt the technique for use underwater to create an artificial limestone reef beneath Venice to stop the city sinking. She will present her work at a workshop at UCL's Bartlett School of Architecture next month. Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 43Jan 09, 2010 10:13 pm Vundaful! Thudd - I wandered in here out of interest and will definitely stay to see how things go. You should consider documenting this - imagine if this sort of home building caught on. What a legend Well they have caught on. Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 44Jan 09, 2010 10:33 pm I hope Thudd will keep posting it is going to be one of the most interesting builds to watch for 2010. Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 45Jan 10, 2010 6:37 am Wow, very interesting. I look forward to following the progress of this build! Stefan Building the M3tr!con Liberty 42 at Stonecutters Ridge. The New Build Blog - "Life, In Progress." Stonecutters Ridge Community Website | My photos Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 46Jan 10, 2010 10:55 am I love strawbale homes, we wanted to do one years ago but it never eventuated, maybe the next one? I also can't wait for your build to start! Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 47Jan 11, 2010 9:22 am I think we'll start building sometime in march/april, depending on the speed of the approvals process. We've just got our soil test back last week (it was supposed to have been done already but the engineer responsible forgot!) so now we'll be talking to excavators and getting that sorted out. On the weekend we cleared the last of the trimmed branches and logs down to the bottom of the block ready for the tree guys to come in and mulch it up. And in the process I found a couple of little trees in the building envelope that have self-seeded that I will try to dig up and transplant. I figure that if they've tried that hard to get themselves established then the least I can do is give them a chance! At the end of it all I'd love to be able to say that I've inspired someone else to also give it a go. I don't think it will be any more expensive than building a 'regular' house so apart from the fear of the unknown there's no reason it can't catch on if a demand starts and more builders get some experience with it. Interestingly, our builder told us that he's getting an average of one enquiry a day simply from his website which he doesn't even advertise, people are just searching and finding it. If my current job ever fails I know there's always a place for me to become a strawbale building apprentice, he's got more work then he can handle if he wants it. Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 48Jan 12, 2010 10:32 pm Thudd On the weekend we cleared the last of the trimmed branches and logs down to the bottom of the block ready for the tree guys to come in and mulch it up. And in the process I found a couple of little trees in the building envelope that have self-seeded that I will try to dig up and transplant. I figure that if they've tried that hard to get themselves established then the least I can do is give them a chance! Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 49Feb 09, 2010 10:13 am Updates The council won't let us build the driveway that we want - they have tightened up the regulations on their approved gradients and ours would be too steep. This means that we can't have the garage under the house as we'd originally envisioned. OK - so be it. If we have to have a separate garage then I'll try to make the best of it. So I've already got plans in mind to create a rooftop garden What that has meant though is a radical rethink of the house as there is now no point in putting the bottom floor on it, not for the sake of a single room anyway. So over the weekend we sat down with the graph paper and had at it. And with a bit of thought we got the entire house up onto a single floor with minimal changes to our room sizes, and in fact our dining room and lounge became larger! The kitchen shrank a bit but it was a pretty huge kitchen to begin with and it is still large. In fact in many ways it is a superior design to our last effort. What it showed us is that we really can live in smaller spaces if we want, using less resources to build which is kind of the point of this thing in the first place. And let's not mention the cost savings: there will be a huge amount of excavation and retaining not required anymore, plus associated engineering with making habitable space underneath the main floor. Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 50Feb 09, 2010 10:47 am Don't you love councils. We had many a phone call discussing the slope of our driveway, with the engineers saying they refused to approve anything over 20%...the natural slope of our land was 22%. We spent ages trying to convince them that the visual impact would be far greater if we had to compy with the 20%. But the engineers wouldn't budge. Then low and behold, the subdivision was approved with a driveway of up to 25% allowed . Good luck with the rest of your dealings with them...you'll need it! 'chelle We have a hand-over date...15/10...but I won't hold my breath! http://people-in-glass-houses.blogspot.com/ Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 51Feb 09, 2010 6:54 pm 'chelle Don't you love councils. We had many a phone call discussing the slope of our driveway, with the engineers saying they refused to approve anything over 20%...the natural slope of our land was 22%. We spent ages trying to convince them that the visual impact would be far greater if we had to compy with the 20%. But the engineers wouldn't budge. Then low and behold, the subdivision was approved with a driveway of up to 25% allowed . Good luck with the rest of your dealings with them...you'll need it! How ridiculous is this? While I understand that restrictions are put in place for a reason, there are just some that go beyond reasonable. 2%? Come on. Glad you were able to finally get it approved. Stefan Building the M3tr!con Liberty 42 at Stonecutters Ridge. The New Build Blog - "Life, In Progress." Stonecutters Ridge Community Website | My photos Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 52Feb 25, 2010 1:17 pm Hi Thudd, Just started digging the footings for our Straw Bale. Hope everything goes well with your build - well done on all the wood - we bought our straw last July and its been sitting under these massive tarps while I worry about the weather. We sourced some wood from a demolition... and are still pulling out nails... now that's a fun job. Great plans - I'll post ours once I work out photobucket Denise Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 53Feb 25, 2010 8:14 pm Hi Thudd, I'm enjoying reading about your plans. I was wondering, if your roof is pitched at less than 45 degrees, can the solar panels be mounted so they are at 45 degrees anyway? There are quite a few straw bale homes around the town where I grew up - lots of environmentally conscious and aware folk there Building on an acre in Macedon ......one day. Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plans! 54Feb 25, 2010 9:10 pm I would just love to see the new version of your plans! I am so excited about seeing this project progress. So cool! Re: Thudd's cold climate strawbale eco build - now with plan 55Oct 31, 2013 4:03 pm Dunno if Thuss'd going to see this, but can't say I didn't try? Did you end up building your strawbale home? Would love to see the results of it if you did. Depends how much direct sun it gets. Is there any shading (eaves or trees)? If the sun hits a window directly it doesn't matter too much if it's double or single… 1 12647 Hi guys, I want to butt a concrete vegetable garden bed against a concrete build up of a carport. It will be a 700mm high wall about 120mm thick and I will run a 12mm rio… 0 2587 9 24751 |