Tag Archives: Sustainable Living

Building Green With Straw: Location, Location,Location

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Building Green with Straw

Location, Location, Location

Building Green With Straw Urban Living

Straw Bale in the City - Image Huff'n' Puff Constructions

Interestingly many green homes, especially when people have been building green with straw,  have traditionally been built “out of town’ on a small holding or small acreage.

However, if living in such circumstance necessitates you driving long distances to work each day or to access other services using a private motor vehicle, this can potentially undo much of the benefit of living in a green home.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be the case though and many green home owners develop ways to ensure their impact outside the home is kept within acceptable levels.

This does not mean that a green home especially when building green with straw,  in an urban area is necessarily any better.

You may still need to travel some distance to work (much more slowly than your regional counterpart) and as homes in urban areas can be more expensive to buy or build, then issues of more than one job to pay the home loan become a reality.

Sustainability is a wide ranging subject when applied to your whole life when building green with straw, like any other project there are many things to consider.  Thoughtful design, thoughtful materials and thoughtful location will all combine to make your building green with straw experience well worthwhile.

If building green with straw is something you are interested in please visit this site for more specific information – yep I’m doing it again.

Green Home Building: Think Global – Act Local

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Green Home Building

Think Global – Act Local

Green Home Building: Think Global - Act Local

No matter how large or small your home is...

Applying this mode of thinking to your green home building or retrofitting project will mean that you source local materials, use local craftspeople, harvest local resources such as water (for storage for later use in your home) and sunshine (solar energy) and wind (wind power) and the amazing power of plants to feed yourself.

For many people a green home encompasses much more that the dwelling itself but include all that surrounds it.  The home may be exactly the same design and construction as all the other homes in the neighbourhood but it stands apart from them in terms of the thought and planning for energy use, waste recycling (think compost, worm farms and the like), water harvesting and food production.  The green home definition can be expanded to include many things.

So when we are thinking about green home building we need to expand our thinking beyond materials, building codes, design and size.  For true green home building we need to look more holistically at who will live here and how they will live – to live well we need to think about sustainability and all our needs and even some of our wants!  Green home building and green retrofitting of existing homes can become one of the solutions instead of our current situation where home are a major part of the problem.

Green Home Building: Ethics and Values

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Green Home Building: Ethics and Values

Green Home BuildingThis is a more difficult area of green home building to navigate and in the end is fraught with compromise.  The decision to use locally sourced, environmentally friendly and low toxicity materials are all ethical considerations, they reflect your values.  While undertaking the planning process for your green home building project, take a look at your ethical wishes and list them in order of importance to you, this will make all those future compromises easier to make as you will have a ready made priority list to hand.

For example you may need to employ some trades people for those jobs that you just can’t physically do yourself or that regulations stipulate you much get qualified people to perform.  You could base your decision on price, on availability, on location, on experience or on their commitment to green home building principles.  List these in order of importance for you – this really will make your compromises easier.
As you can see, once you start green home building (with awareness) – things can get complicated.

Building Green With Straw – The House (3)

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Building Green With Straw – The House (3)

Transition Project #3

Now, where was I up to with this building green with straw project the last time I wrote to you? Ah yes, head down and tail up looking at the bottom of a stump hole. Well you’ll be pleased to hear that things have progressed quite well since then despite a few dramatic events.

Gold Mine Shaft

The biggest drama was the discovery of not one but TWO old Chinese mine shafts at the bottom of a few of our stump holes!  During the gold rush this area was full of hopeful souls from all over the world and the Chinese shafts stand the test of time due to being round, rather than square as the European shafts generally were.

We got the drilling rig in to determin the make up of the hole we had uncovered but they ran out of drill before they reached the bottom of the shaft so the engineers had to come up with a solution before we could proceed. This was duly done and work continued as our dream of living in a more sustainable home came one faltering step closer to reality.

New Year long weekend

We are first time builders and have only the weekends to do our creative construction so progress is fairly slow but there are some days when it seems a milestone has been reached and we get quite excited. Our ability to only do this on the weekends was one of the main reasons we chose to attempt building green with straw.  Time, skill and experience levels and cost were all major factors.

Laying those first sheets of flooring was one of those days (well weekends really) when the excitement was really tangible to us and the weather was so hot we just about expired! Having days like this really inspires us to keep on going, despite the heat or the frustration, despite the doubts we might have about our ability to do the task at hand.  A big lesson for us has been that although our dream is to create our home by building green with straw, there are many other materials, tasks and skills we need to master (and get our heads around) before that can become a reality.

Nothing prepared us for the next big event in our lives though and that was the bushfires which ravaged our area last Summer.

Interior wall frames finished

Still, once the danger passed and we recovered our spirit, we soldiered on and were elated at the next two big moments in our building adventure. We completed the construction of the internal framed walls and our straw was delivered!

Carport 7 March a

Now it felt very, very real and boy were we excited that day!  It really reminded us of all the dreams and hopes we have for our lovely straw bale home.  We arranged for a young man who lives not far from us to help us unload the truck (thanks Kai) and around 560 bales later our carport had become a haystack!

Of course, I began building our first load bearing strawbale wall that very afternoon – I was so attached to it, I felt like it was the most precious thing and I had a very emotional afternoon, I guess this was the first time that I really felt that our idea of building green with straw was really going to come true.  This had been a dream of mine for around 8 years and to be finally handling the straw that was to become my home just touched my heart in a really big way. I had no idea I would respond that way but I can tell you that the love has remained and we just adore what we are creating here weekend after weekend.

Building Green With Straw

Every now and then, when we have a big task to complete – like constructing and installing a big thing like this recycled timber door frame we call on our friends and neighbours to lend a hand (thanks Charlie, Melissa and Matthew :-) )

This has been a real joy for us and we’ve met some amazing people in our area just because we share something like owner building and building green with straw bale construction as an interest. This was not something we had realised was going to happen and we feel such a bond with those who have helped us create our home. It’s wonderful.

Due to certain local and State regulations there are some things we can’t do ourselves like electrical (thanks Ron), putting up the roof (thanks Shady, Rob and Neil), and stuff we want someone experienced to do like earthmoving (thanks Tim), so we have used local trades people as a matter of principle – this has been an absolute delight and we are now able to make recommendations to others based on our experience. It’s a great feeling to be able to offer a good person to help someone just embarking on a building adventure like we are on.

If you would like to continue reading about our adventures in building green with straw, or any of our transition projects just subscribe to our list and you will receive notifications when we add something of interest to the blog.  And remember – building green with straw is not the only way to make sustainable living a reality in your life.

Sustainable Living: What Is Transition?

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Sustainable Living: What Is Transition?

It’s an interesting word Transition, don’t you think?

I mean to me it’s much softer than the word Change and yet, at it’s deepest level it means much the same thing. I realise it means change but it has so much more potential.

I used to work in a government department that was charged with organisational change – in those days that was shorthand for a lot of people losing their jobs and everyone else being jollied along to pick up the workload. Transition on the other hand means change yes, but it also has the potential to mean “evolution” to something different and that has the potential to mean something better.

Now, my dictionary says that Transition is “the act of changing or passing from one form, state, subject or place to another.”

Now that sounds participatory and creative and interesting to me, whereas change sounds nasty, like a top-down decision that I’m just going to have to live with. Transition sounds like it can be pulled of by anyone, with a little style even and that is what I think the Transition Movement, which is spreading all over the world, is all about.

Now this movement under it’s current guise, started in the UK but it began spreading itself around the world very quickly, anywhere there are “thinking people”, it will find a home.

The basic premise of the movement is to come up with solutions to the massive issues of Peak Oil and Climate Change but the difference is that the solutions are being sought with the aim of making communities, local areas and regions strong enough, diverse enough, resilient enough to not just survive in a post oil society with a very different climate but to thrive.

If you click on this link, you will find the Transition Primer which will give you the heads up on the important aspects of this movement… it’s FREE so download it today. Of course, there is a book and a website and a forum, so if you are the kind of person who just might be looking for a bit of a plan to help you develop the mindset, the skills set, the community connections and the enthusiasm to face to coming transition with a modecum of style rather than the mass panic developing around the place, these resources could be just the thing you need.

If you click the links you’ll get more information from what I think are credible sources, the books I’ve read (mostly) and are great resources. There is a lot of information and access to a lot of other resources through the links provided above but I’ve also given you some specific links to book that I think are well worth reading. If you are lucky you may be able to borrow them but if you want to or need to buy them, consider doing so via the links below.

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (Transition Guides)

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If you have read about Permaculture, are an organic gardener or community garden participant then these books are a logical progression.

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability

513KXVRGFAL._SL160_ is another fantastic book by Permaculture co-creator David Holmgren and while I was searching for that one, I discovered a more recent publication (although as yet I’ve not read it) so take a good look around and find the things that resonate with you.

I hope they are of assistance to you as you continue to educate yourself about the very real things that are occurring all around us. I believe that we each have the power to influence how these things play out in our lives, if we educate ourselves and each other, support each other, work together we will build the kind of future where we can live well without biting the very hand that feeds us.

I’ll be outlining some of the projects, steps and connections my family is making in response to Climate Change and Peak Oil There is enough information (through the links in this post) to give you a really good idea of what is happening and perhaps a few very good resources and ideas to get you started on your personal transition to a low energy future. If we do it together we can make it a graceful journey that everyone can take.

If you would like to ensure you don’t miss out on any of the following “Transition Projects” posts, if you would like to gain access to a whole range of tips and advice on how to save energy (and money in the process) just put your name and email address into the box at the top right of this page. I’ve had so much fun making the videos so I really hope you get some great ideas from them.

Building Green With Straw -The House (1)

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Building Green With Straw -The House (1)

Transition Project #3

We have wanted to build our own home for the longest time and we’ve also been committed to building green with straw for almost as long.  We first saw our home about 5 months before we decided to buy it, we didn’t even bother to take a look inside.  Nope, it wasn’t for us – too small, wrong position and frankly it just didn’t look like something we would even consider. Not that it was awful, it was just that unless we could buy a house that would meet all our eco-friendly ideals OR get some vacant land so that we could build with those ideals in mind, we didn’t want to waste anyones time.

So what changed? We took a look at it with new eyes.

  • We decided that the fact that it faced totally the wrong way (for energy efficiency) could actually be an advantage.
  • We decided that the fact that it was a weather board home would make it easier to retrofit.
  • We decided that since it was quite, quite small that it was a reasonable thing to expand and extend it.

And so we purchased this little house, facing the wrong way but with so much potential. Buy it and make it a sustainable home by building green with straw – that was the plan and slowly, we are taking our steps in that direction.

So, what did we buy?

It’s a little house, sitting on not quite two acres, with some nice native trees on the southern and western boundaries, with 100 or so productive Chestnut trees to the north, twenty neglected fruit trees and lots of long grass.

Building Green With Straw

Really, we would have preferred a couple more acres but properties in our chosen areas cost quite a bit so this was our compromise. Despite all the things that were “wrong” with our chosen purchase, there was so much we could do to make it better and we really started right away.

We did a couple of things initially to mediate against the Sun in Summer – blinds were attached to all the outside verandahs to stop the sun actually shining on the glass of our windows.

If the Sun hits the glass it acts like a radiator inside the house. Not a good idea when the temperatures are heading towards the 35 degree Celcius mark on a Summer day! We roll up the blinds in the winter and they really do a good job of cutting the heat and the glare in the summer.

In the winter we have a wood burning combustion stove, carpets, lined blinds on the windows and so long as the heater is on we are toasty warm. However, we use a lot of wood.

Building Green With Straw

The ceiling and the walls do have insulation in them, but it’s not very thick and we know that to increase the level of insulation will make a lot of difference both in Winter and in Summer.

Still (we remind ourselves) this is why we purchased this particular house.

We just knew we could take something at was doing just about everything wrong and by putting our building green with straw action plan… into action, turn it into something that does just about everything right! With that in mind, the plans were hatched to build an extension.

An eco-extension, “out the back”, on the western side of the house. We already knew what materials we would use and for us the material that touched our hearts was building  green with straw. Now I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in the wheat belt of New South Wales and was surrounded by paddocks and fields of wheat but this product just sets my pulse racing! :-)

So we did a Strawbale Owner Builders course, purchased a book on the subject and we set about designing the changes to our little house.

This series of “Transition” posts will outline our building green with straw journey and I really hope you will enjoy them. As I sit writing this today, there is a man on the roof putting on the last few sheets of iron that will finally link the extension to the existing house! Time for a bit of a celebration I think as now we have one roof over our plans and dreams and although it’s still a long way from finished, it is at last – one house.

If you would like to ensure you don’t miss out on any of the following “Transition Projects” posts, if you would like to gain access to a whole range of tips and advice on how to save energy (and money in the process) just put your name and email address into the box at the top right of this page.   Come back often and look for updates on the building green with straw adventure we have started we’d love to see you again and hear what you think about how we have created a sustainable, eco-friendly home by building green with straw.

Transition Project #2: The Chook (Chicken) Project – part 1

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Transition Project #2: The Chook (Chicken) Project – part 1

Transition Projects are those steps we have taken to help up move to a more sustainable lifestyle. Some of them are idealogical, some of them are practical and some of them are just dreams to be acted on in the future. Here we share some of our steps with you in the hope you will become inspire to adopt and adapt some of them to suit your circumstances.

We’ve been here on our property for about two and a half years now and the very first thing we did (after lighting a fire because we were freezing!) was construct a house and yard for our fine feathered friends.

We have both Chooks (chickens) and Ducks and they give us fantastic eggs, manure and garden maintenance services as well as lots of entertainment with their antics.

You can probably tell by now that we just love them.

Beryla

They spent their first week or so living in our box trailer (with a mesh cage fitted to the top) and a tarpaulin and plywood on the top. They didn’t seem to mind too much and were happy to free range all over the place during the day.

As a ‘quick’ fix we purchased a flat pack steel garden shed and set them up a weather and fox proof home. It works OK but we would prefer to provide them with first class accommodations as they provide us with such first class companionship and services.

We built them a small holding yard from timber posts, welded “dog” mesh and corrugated iron. The iron goes all the way around the bottom of the enclosure and is dug into the ground to deter foxes digging underneath and also to help keep snakes out of their pen. We have some shade-cloth over the top to provide them with some shade and protection from the elements. I’ve planted a grapevine that will eventually grow up and over the yard and give them the kind of environment that they really love.

Chooks are originally forest floor birds and prefer a good cover overhead so the grapevine will give them shade, cover and even some fallen grapes which they will adore.

Our birds are only put into this yard (so they have access to their shed) in the evenings at feeding time. We let them out in the mornings and they range freely all over the property all day long.

This has proved a fairly successful strategy as they clean up all sorts of bugs in the garden, eat fallen fruit in the orchard and dig around in the fallen leaves all winter looking for tasty morsels.

Ducka

Ducks on the other hand don’t really seem to mind. What they do like though is water. Now we don’t have a dam or a pond but they will find water wherever it is – as you can see from this photo. What we have done is rescue an old bathtub from the tip (rubbish dump) and dig it into the ground just outside the chook (and duck) yard.

We have lost two ducks to foxes since we arrived here but both of those were taken during the day. No chooks were taken at all so it appears our local foxes have a preference in what type of fowl they eat! Hopefully we will prevent any further losses as we now have some gorgeous dogs who also roam around during the day and this may deter the foxes. Sure hope so.

This post is Part One of the Chook Project because we’ve now decided that we would like to upgrade the housing for these wonderful animals who share our lives and we are in the planning stages for new and improved chicken coop building and perhaps an expanded holding yard just so that they have some extra room for those times when we need to have them contained.

There will be follow up posts giving you the low down on where we are up to, so keep an eye out for updates. Everyone can take Transition Steps To Sustainable Living and we’d love to hear about some of your Transition Projects – so leave us a comment.

Transition Projects #1: The Shade House (Grow Your Own Food)

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Transition Projects #1: The Shade House (Growing Your Own Food)

Well Spring is attempting to poke it’s head through the clouds here in Australia – it seems to be a little bit shy so far, despite the equinox giving it the green light!

Needless to say I’ve been busy in the garden, well the enormous weed patch really.

We have a shadehouse that we constructed from timber that used to think it was a shed but now firmly believes it’s a shadehouse.

Demolishing shed (8)a

Pulling down the old shed was a real adventure – it was covered in ivy, jasmin and passionfruit vines… in the end we had to set fire to it to finally overcome all the greenery! I’m not joking, just check out the picture below.

Shed demolition (5)a

We find that we need it in the summer to stop things getting burnt by the sun. The year we constructed it I went from watering twice a day (and feeling like I was losing badly) to watering about three times a week. A BIG saving in time and water and with Summer temperatures on the rise I think we may end up with more than one shady area around our food production.

The construction is very simple (like us really). An arrangement of star pickets (fence droppers), 2 inch poly pipe (which just happens to fit perfectly over the pickets) and a nice timber “spine” down the middle to keeps things nice and upright. We covered the lot in shadecloth with bird netting at the ends. We also had a door made up using some left over welded wire mesh and some corrugated iron. Veg Garden (2)a

We have a couple of raised beds in the middle and beds all around the edges. Right now they are without hard edges but our intention is to give them either hardwood or recycled brick edges and to put gravel around the pathways.

All in good time as resources become available.

Shadehouse completed

I’ve already got my potatoes in.

There are also raspberries, strawberries, feijoa, blueberries, rhubarb, artichoke, currants and lots of different herbs. We intend to add an asparagus bed in time for next Spring too. In summer I’ll plant some soft herbs like corriander, basil and maybe some soft lettuce to have in salads.

The shadehouse has such a nice little microclimate for most of the season that it’s hard to go past all the yummy goodies growing inside it. Of course, they are all organic – I mean what else would you expect? :-)

So what are you growing this season? Even fresh herbs can add a whole new dimension to your food, your health and your life. Go on – get planting.

Sustainable Living: Permaculture Possibilities

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Sustainable Living: Permaculture Possibilities

I have been a long time, enthusiastic gardener and have embraced organic principles and have attempted to incorporate Permaculture ethic and design principles into my garden, my home and yes, even my life. Geoff Lawton is about the release a new DVD and I’ve put in my order in anticipation. I thought I’d share the YouTube video with you as inspiration of how looking at things in a new way can inspire great change, great abundance and great hope for the future. Alternative, Sustainable, Abundant Living is possible and even though most of the vision in this clip is in the “country side” I know from experience that ANYONE can achieve amazing things even if all they have are a few corners filled to the brim with post and containers. Hope you enjoy it

Building Green With Straw: Guess What I Did This Weekend?

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Building Green With Straw – Guess What I Did This Weekend?

That’s a bit of a trick question really because (weather permiting) it’s what I do most weekends for the past few (many) months and for many more to come. You see, I’m an owner builder and I’m building an eco-friendly, sustainable, green home! Out of straw – yes I am building green with straw.

We are up to the really fun bit right now, preparing our walls for rendering and getting stuck into the mud – part of the joy of building green with straw is the mud!  Enjoy our first video with our new (Vista compatible) camera.

Sorry about all the noise with the whipper snipper but I think my hubby loves it when I use power tools!  Out comes the camera and away he goes, following me about as I really gt into our building project.  However, my poor dog hates it and barks his head off the whole time… he even starts up again when I play the video!

To keep up to date with all the latest and greatest news on our build, on energy saving, of sustainable living. building green with straw and what the new mainstream greener lifestyle can mean for you…. subscribe to the newsletter (top right of this page)