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STRAW BALE CONSTRUCTION
Owner Builders
HVNB works with owner builders to help make their dream a reality and with sound construction and beautiful design. As a dreamer myself, I love the opportunity to work with individuals pursuing their visions.
HVNB's serivces range from contracting to consulting depending on the needs of the clients. Owner-builders often need support with design considerations and details, and implementing pieces along the way.
With building straw bale homes, HVNB can assume a construction manager role, consultant to an owners or architects, or can act as a general contractor.
HVNB is part of an extensive network of regional professionals, Natural Builders Northeast, who work together to inform and support eachother to answer questions, problem-shoot, and make each job as successful as possible. |  | A Little About Straw Bale...
The first straw bale buildings in the US date back over 150 years. Since then innovative builders and designers have continued to refine straw bale building systems to fit climates throughout the world. In the northeast US, strawbale building systems are very well adapted and appropriate for the extreme temperatures, and wet weather.
Basic design components of a straw bale strucutre:
(1) the frame and roof are the structure of the building,
(2) the straw bale and plaster are the wall systems, and
(3) passive solar orientation
(4) site design
How it Works...
In the northeast US straw bale walls and post-and-beam or timber-frames have proven to be an ideal marriage, though stick frame straw bales are possible as well. The timber-frame structure supports large snow loads, are beautiful, and use the local resources of wood and small family-owned mills.
Bale/plaster walls have an R-vale ranging from 45 to 50. The plaster skin gives an airtight seal along with a massive amount of thermal mass. Not to mention the beauty and sculptability of a custom plaster finish.
A house oriented to maximize solar gain will take full advantage of the sun's heating capacity. While the straw bales keep heat from escaping and cold from entering (and visa versa), the plaster skin absorbs heat. This means that when heat is produced, such as on a sunny day or lighting a woodstove, the walls abosrd the heat and then radiate it when no heat is being produced. The result is a building with a comortable stasis with no extremes of temperatures. When you think about close to 2 inches of plaster throughout an entire house, that's a lot of heat in your walls.
Site Design is essential to a properly performing straw bale building. There's nothing tricky about it, keep your house dry by having sufficient drainage, and siting the house where it wont sit in water or a moisture sink. Good site design works to your advantage in so many ways. | | Straw Bale Internet Resources
www.ecobuildnetwork.net
www.dcat.net
www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca
www.thelaststraw.org | | | | | | | |
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