The Straw bale Journey
Our straw bale journey started with the acquirement of some land located in West Wyalong. This small rural block was simply a paddock without any servcies connected. The local climate is very hot with 40+ degree days and over 35 degree Celcius at night until 3am or so. This heat can be unrelenting for weeks at a time in Summer.
Winter can also get quite cold but not too extreme. Usually we see a few mornings drop below 0 degrees, but it is mostly just fresh. It is a dry hot climate.
The Concept
The concept was to build a eco-friendly house that would take a minimal of maitenance in time and money. My background is in electronics and so it seemed like we could save some money by going off-Grid. To go off the electricity grid requires that your heating and cooling costs be minimal. We considered various technologies including:
- Hebel
- Mudbrick
- Adobe
- Standard timber/Corrogated Tin
- Earth Ship
- Straw bale
After some consideration including labour, cost and practicality, we decided on straw bale construction. On this site we share some of the methods we used. We will also share some of the mistakes we made in the hope others can learn from them. Since part of the concept is living off-grid some information is shared about that too.