The BEST way to build a new home? Building a House with STRAW BALES : Start to Finish - Episode 1

Is building a new house with straw bales the best way to build a new home? Straw Bale Construction has been around for over a hundred years, and so few people are aware of its incredible potential. We hope to change that. Join us every Monday at 8 p.m. EST for our new series, "Building a House with Straw Bales: Start to Finish".

Heirloom Builders is a straw bale home builder in North Carolina.
What’s the difference between a Straw Bale Home and a Conventional Stick-Built Home?

What’s up, everybody! Welcome to our series on BUILDING A HOUSE with Straw Bales- Start to Finish. THIS is Heirloom Builders. And I’m Logan Parker. I’ve been building energy efficient homes and custom cabinetry for the last 16 years. And I absolutely LOVE geeking out on all the details that make a home not only look good, but also function really well.

Have you ever heard the story of the 3 Little Pigs??? The LAZY little pig built HIS house out of straw……….and that didn’t work out so well for him. The big bad wolf Huffed and Puffed and blew his house down. But the hard-working little pig took the time to build himself a BRICK house. And no matter how much that big bad wolf tried, he couldn’t blow down THAT little pig’s brick house. So why would anyone want to build their home with straw bales? a STRAW BALE HOME is built with 18” wide compressed straw bales, with 1” of plaster on both the inside and outside surfaces. It’s actually built more like the little pig’s BRICK house. And yet with the dense straw bale core, it’s SUPER insulated and Cozy WARM inside.

Have you ever thought about building your own home? Built well enough to hold the heat in the winter and be comfortable in the hot summer months?

Most homes are built with 2x4 walls and fiberglass batt insulation. The main problem with this strategy is that you can only fit so much insulation in a skinny little wall. And if it’s not installed properly, it’s hardly effective at all. 30% of home energy loss comes from air leakage, and when you quickly stuff fiberglass batts into a 2x4 wall, like most contractors do, there’s tons of gaps and places for cold air to leak inside your home.

Building better homes that off-gas fewer VOC’s, consume less energy over their lifetime, and take less energy to build in the first place is a GREAT start.

There are a LOT of ways to build a better home. But None of them offer as much promise as straw bale building. I’ve been intrigued by building with straw bales ever since I learned that they could make a super-insulated wall system, look really beautiful, AND using natural materials could be a way to build a house for dirt cheap.

We’ve built all kinds of high performance conventional homes with insulation details that perform really well. I love geeking out on how to build things better. We built an air-tight home to the rigorous Passivhuas requirement of less than 0.5 ACH. We even built the first panelized HEMPCRETE home in North America.

And yet Nothing excites me more, than building with straw bales. In fact, I built my own house with straw bales. I can attest to the strength, the thermal mass, and the amazing insulation value that keeps me cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Straw bales are basically rectangular BRICKS OF INSULATION that you can stack to make a wall and literally just smear them with mud to create a superior wall system. Think about it, these are about the closest thing to legos that you can use to build your home, except even better. Like LEGO’s, straw bales are lightweight and easy to move. Yet they are BIG, so stacking a whole house can easily be done in a single weekend with help from a few friends.

Stack the bales like bricks in a running bond where they overlap on each successive course. We use a chainsaw to notch out space in the bale for the framing - so it’s all flush on the outside. Then all we gotta do is apply an earthen clay or lime plaster for BOTH the interior and exterior surfaces. We smear it directly on the bales to seal them up and protect from rain, pests and fire.

One of the most promising things about straw bale construction is that straw bales are readily available all over the planet.

I feel like every week I see a new type of “ingenious” 3D printed technology or lego style house building kit that's hoping to replace conventional building with ease and labor savings. But here’s the thing:
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here folks. Straw bales are a waste product that can be repurposed into something really practical. They are imperfect, yes. Do they require manual labor? Definitely! But in the age of sky-high lumber prices and robots replacing our jobs, we NEED manual labor opportunities AND simple ways for everyday folks living on Basic Income to build a decent home with their own two hands.
#house
#strawbaleconstruction
#stepbystep

[richardhoner]

I built a straw bale house 15 years ago. It still functions as it should and has required almost no maintenance. My building method was similar to this video presentation. I covered the bales inside and outside with chicken wire and laced the two sides together through the bales with wire. I coated the outside with a cement/clay/sand mixture and then a final coat of a lime plaster mixed with white play sand. The inside got a plaster/clay/sand mix.

[banjodubghall]

I live in a straw bale home. Cob inside and out. It is like air conditioning in summer and stays up to 80 in 0 degree winter. 3 stories high. When woodstove goes 24 7 it stays 75 to 80 no problem. Such an efficient home. Very very efficient.

[jessicadefilippo]

My late husband and I built with strawbales in 1998. It was the best home I ever lived in.

[mark-fdol]

Great video my wife and live in Canada. And we built a straw bale home. Our home is a pole building 50x100x18 And keeps us warm in our cold winters for the last 18 years. Our walls are 36 inches deep.

[perkar]

After living in one for 10 years, earth roof included, I will never live in a stick build again..our Sauna is also Straw Bale.

[earthinspiredart]

Hempcrete blocks are also substituting strawbale. Such wonderful new methods of building.

[hayleydwyer]

This is a great video, thanks for sharing!!! I can’t wait to see more of these! I plan for our next home to be strawbale and cob! ☺️

[hamadqatar]

We used almost the same material for our old traditional buildings before 60 years in the Arabian Gulf .. Thick walls made by local stones and mud paste mixed with straw the roofs semi flat wooden studs and straw mats covered by straw and mud slightly sloped to shed rain water

[carloko]

here in Spain farmers of ancient times build their barns and homes with straw bales too, they use clay plaster to coat the outside and inside walls and in the ground they use fired brick or stone paver, the spaniard colones brought those construction methods to America when they discovered it and when they developed it, throughout America you can see old houses with these methods, and some have been going on for centuries, here in Spain there are still towns built of stone and straw bales that have been functional and inhabited for centuries so these ancient construction methods are a good option for those who want to use them to build their own houses or as a real job opportunity because they solve the problem of the COST of construction materials that are excessively high these days, a good builder as our friend of this video who know these methods and first class materials can make a very large mansion at half or less the cost of a house of the same size with current materials, so have no doubts, these construction methods are excellent, the centuries-old houses built with these methods attest to this, greetings 😉

[ragman]

Great video! I think I want to build a pavilion roof, then come inside that with the straw bale, free-standing. Then there is room for a wrap-around porch. Also, the walls can be any shape that I choose. Building the roof first allows for a dry workspace.

[danariddle]

I love the idea of the straw house. As a single mom, looking for options to save money, I find this very interesting.

[kaylavillalobos]

I’m so glad I found your channel! Dreaming up our straw bale house currently 🤗

[zirenke]

OO thank you for encouraging me ! Few weeks ago I decided that next year when the earth loosens I am starting to build my own straw bale house ! so exited :DD

[tiffanyclark-grove]

I use straw bales to insulate my chicken coup. I once had a guy come into the landscape company I work for and ask to buy all our straw bales. He was building a straw bale house. Pretty great idea.

[autumnjames]

Amazing! Just so excited to attempt my new ADU build. You’ve done a great job on the video- super informative! Thanks so much!

[erichpizer]

i hope the USA market adopts more methods like this for building. its crazy how things are built currently .

[Luna-jkde]

This was my first introduction to strawbale housing and WOW... simply put, WOW... and what an awesome video and presentation. Thank you for this!

[andrews]

So stoked! looking forward to more of this!

[rickchumsae]

Our Santa Fe, NM home was adobe-style, 2, 000sf, built with 2x6 exterior walls on concrete slab and a little extra batt fiberglass insulation, ie, not too much extra expense. The design was passive solar so we spent a little more on windows. The floors were all saltillo tile. Result? Pretty darn good! We installed in-floor forced hot water heating using LPG storage tank fuel and our heating bill for (over and above hot water and gas cooktop) never exceeded $25 a month and we had a baby so the heat was always on in the winter but it rarely actually turned on. So, strawbale is an attractive (looks and performance) way to go but do combine if possible with passive solar design for very small utility costs and better ecological results every day for decades. Thank you for your videos.

[PatriciaJoy]

I think this is what I'm going to be doing for my house on my family land. We wanted a cabin but this is so cheap and the out comes look beautiful