Learning How

I'm pretty set on this method for building my house, but we have no past experience building with straw. My father and I are both in the construction business so we know we can do it, we just need to get the correct information as to how it's done because we've never done it. Can someone please tell me where we can get some type of book or DVD that goes over the details of building such a house? I see a lot of info spread out online, but for such a serious undertaking, we really need some type of structured instruction. Please advise.

I was fortunate enought to have worked on a house through the local Community College and Environmental Center. Through that I made connections and worked on a few others along with a couple days with an eartship. We wanted a straw bale house but with the difficulty in finding financing we built a conventional home. Still want a straw bale house but will have to wait till I retire.
I probably have 10 different books on straw bale building. hit the library and see what they have. Hands on and learning the little tricks at an actual build is great.

Hi Brandon,

There must be some good books out there. Top that off with the info available here and I think you can do a good job.

On any first time project though, I offer this advice.

Build something small first. I did this before starting my shed. I had zero experience with carpentry. So I built a pump shack first. It ended up slightly trapezoidal. That's ok for a pump shack, not so good for a shed. So my advice would be get your books, read up and build something small, like a shed. You can likely use the space and you don't care much about mistakes. Learn how to build with a small project first.

Then tackle the house assured that your expensive mistakes have been made.

YLE

Jeff Rash wrote:Hi Brandon,

There must be some good books out there. Top that off with the info available here and I think you can do a good job.

On any first time project though, I offer this advice.

Build something small first. I did this before starting my shed. I had zero experience with carpentry. So I built a pump shack first. It ended up slightly trapezoidal. That's ok for a pump shack, not so good for a shed. So my advice would be get your books, read up and build something small, like a shed. You can likely use the space and you don't care much about mistakes. Learn how to build with a small project first.

Then tackle the house assured that your expensive mistakes have been made.

YLE

My father and I are experienced carpenters and have crews of carpenters to help, but none of us have every dealt with straw bales or plaster. In your experience, was the straw bale assembly and plaster difficult or was it just the carpentry you had trouble with?