About two years ago, my friend Woody posted an article about straw bale construction (Click Here to see the full article). At that point in time, straw bale construction was just starting to build popularity, and it has only gotten bigger since. Even in our current economic recession, more and more people are “going out on a limb” to experiment with this relatively uncommon building method. But then again, building a house using straw bales is nothing new; there are straw bale homes in the United States and Europe that were built in the 1800’s — and they’re still perfectly sound!
The exciting thing is that straw bale construction has advanced so much recently. You can still purchase bales straight from the farm, but by using special compacting tools, these bales that can support up to 4000 pounds per linear foot. How’s that for innovation?
If you’re interested in building a home using straw bales, you definitely should check out this website:
You can find just about anything you need at strawbale.com — everything from basic straw bale info, names of experienced straw bale builders, specialized compacting tools, and so forth — you can even find information about how to finance a straw bale home!
And just in case you’re having some trouble visualizing what a straw bale home might look like, here are a few pictures I found on Wikipedia.org that show how awesome straw-bale construction can be:
This shows the straw bales during construction
This shows a fully-finished straw bale home.
This shows how luxurious a straw bale home can really be!
