Straw Bale House Roof

For straw bale this can pose a problem in keeping the walls free from direct moisture.

Straw bale house roof.

Post and beam construction is where a structural frame is built and the bales are then placed into that frame as insulation. As i look at this i think a roof would almost be better with loose fill chopped straw inside of a 2 6 roof framework. Post and beam or in fill and load bearing. It was a hell of a task to pull it off especially since we loaded all the soil onto the surface of the roof one bucket at a time.

A good time to use this roof is obviously when the budget is tight or if you want a larger exposed side of the structure as in a greenhouse or in cooler climates. The bales have no structural value for the loads of the building which are all carried by the structural frame. Most straw bale builders use clay based earthen plasters or lime plaster which require regular reapplication. The weight of bales within a roof has to be a very serious consideration.

The straw bale roof constructed by dr zhang and blue mountains straw bale builder jason dash only took one day to erect. Video tour of an incredible underground hobbit home that is completely off grid. Zhang s next project is to construct an entire habitable building in dubbo in collaboration with john dash and the landowner. There are two general styles of straw bale construction.

The papercrete is completely unsealed and thus breathable. The easiest way to do this is with expanded metal lath at each course. If you were building in a fairly arid environment you might experiment with a papercrete plaster as i have done with my earthbag home. The strawtron roof is lookin good and green these days when we built our two story timber frame straw bale house in 2012 13 we incorporated a green roof into the design.

While cement stucco is convenient and low maintenance it can cause moisture problems once it cracks and may actually keep the bale wall from drying properly. When attaching a straw bale addition to an existing house the biggest concern is to make sure that the two structures are tied together well. All straw bale houses need a layer of plaster on the outside to keep water out. Today insulated homes usually have r 20 in the walls and many old homes have r 14 for insulation or considerably less.

A breathable strawbale vault is a difficult proposition.