Adventures in Straw Bale Home Building
The March Hare: Issue 35

Footprints in the Snow * Hopper's Index * New Member Bio: Gare * Lying alone in plush tufts *
Adventures in Straw Bale Home Building * Nature Corner * New Member Bio: Tamar

Adventures in Straw Bale Home Building

This September, Penn and I began building our cabin. Somehow it seemed reasonable that two people, neither of whom had built a home before, could construct a cabin in a few short months. Boy those months felt long. We were part of a mad dash of folks trying to make their homes livable before the weather became too cold. Such pressure made for a few frenzied and tired months.

Sledgehammering the wall into place

By Thanksgiving, Penn and I were at a point where we had our cabin ready for winter and could (whew!) take a break. We returned to Dancing Rabbit after a short holiday trip, only to find our building work wasn’t complete. While cleaning up the cabin one afternoon, we discovered our straw bale walls didn’t look as stable. In fact, some bales looked rather out of place. Uh oh, it seemed to be because…. our roof was moving! (yikes!)

[brief interlude to explain our house]
We did some experimenting when we were building. Instead of a concrete foundation, we used gravel and gravel filled bags. Our cabin is a loadbearing strawbale structure. It’s about as tall as it is long, with a 45 degree pitch and features a sleeping loft that spans half the cabin length. Atop the bale walls sits a rectangular frame, or roof bearing assembly (RBA). Connected to the RBA are the trusses, roof metal, you know, the parts that comprise the roof. The gravel foundation, the steep roof pitch, and the sleeping loft were construction ideas that hadn’t been used yet on loadbearing strawbale homes at Dancing Rabbit.

Tom gives it a shot

A chain was attached to two eye bolts in the RBA. Another chain was attached to the locust tree in front of the cabin. The two chains met at a “comealong,” which is a tool used to move heavy objects. The comealong would pull the chains taut and move the roof back into place. Everyone was silent (including the dogs) as Bob cranked on the comealong. People were stationed at every corner to watch the walls for “we’re-gonna-collapse”-like movement. What would that look like anyway? We didn’t want to find out. Then, whoa, the roof started to slide, and after a few cranks on the comealong had moved back toward its original position. It was amazing to see the one and a half ton roof slide so easily. It was also rather scary, because we weren’t certain what would result from the movement. After the roof was moved about six inches we coaxed the bales back into place with sledgehammers.

Bob at work

Rachel and Gare watch the action

This winter, with months of frenzied building and roof fixin’ behind us, I’m ready to hibernate, back in our sleeping loft again. But, our building days are far from over. Presently, our outside walls are covered with stylish blue tarps to keep the bales protected from the elements, until they can be painted with plaster this spring. The floor is gravel covered with rugs. Some doors are in place but have yet to be hung correctly. Not much can be done to complete such tasks during the winter, though. The cabin feels cozy now, but will be even more so once completed. It will be interesting to see how our gravel foundation handles the weather and how our RBA braces hold the loft. There are more building adventures waiting for us in the future, to be sure.

Footprints in the Snow * Hopper's Index * New Member Bio: Gare * Lying alone in plush tufts * Adventures in Straw Building * Lady Builder * Nature Corner * New Member Bio: Tamar