# Utopia is made from straw bales



## yas (Apr 24, 2010)

In my search for a solution for the accommodation problem of the world(part of my quest, if you read some of my posts, you will know what I mean) I wanted something that costs the *least cost *possible, *available* *everywhere*, have a *high isolation efficiency*, *easy *to be built, *ecofriendly*, *earth quake resistant*, *fire resistant*, and most importantly: *Anyone can learn* *how to build it* by themselves.

And this is how I found Straw bale houses.
Now, for people who don't know what is straw bale houses, here is something for you to understand what is it.
*




*

- An earth quake test on a straw bale house shows it is more earth quake resistant then usual houses:

*



*

- The use of straw is quite fire resistant. As hard as it may&#65279; be to believe, it's true.
(Testing 2 straw bales, before and after, the difference between the first and the second is the second bale has been dipped on all surfaces in a wet mix of water and clay (clayslip) and dried. The individual straws are still visible, however slightly coated in clayslip, which clearly means it's darn hard to ignite.):

*








*- And some more benefits for the straw bale construction (Excellent isolation among other things )

*



*

What about the cost? here is an American project that collected funds to build straw house buildings in China for a poor village, cost of one house was roughly 70$ !! , this project got *APFED award *because of that project:
*
Strawbale Factsheet: Project Background

*
And just to see how easy it is to build a house like that, here is a video that shows some teenagers build a straw bale house for the first time in there lives in ONE day, of course they are using a special simpler design (dome design) but still, it shows how easy it is to do it:

*




*and now I will leave you with some pictures for these houses, just to show you that above all these things, it is really beautiful houses with that warmth and cozy feeling that you don't really find in other places














*YES, that is a fire place! (the fire place itself is made from stone, but the rest is straw bale as u can see) *









*Window of truth, straw bale inside!

*


















*Since the blog here limited the number of the pictures I can put to only 4 pictures, so you can see the rest of the pictures in the original post here*


*And as a last gift to everyone here, I put this practical building book about how to build your straw bale house in easy steps!*

Enjoy people


----------



## Jinxies (May 5, 2010)

Hale bail houses are awesome! But they can sure get pricey!


----------



## yas (Apr 24, 2010)

Actually it is not costly thing to do, here is couple of links to show you that people did it before, and it costs them much less then any other option:

*Plans for a Small "Starter" Straw Bale Home or Guest House*

SIZE: 480 square feet, external - 312 square feet, internal

Total Expenses for House and Utilities: $7000 
Total Expenses for House and Utilities if Permitted: $11,000 

The more you will want to put in the house, the more you will start to pay, if you did it yourself, you will reduce the cost greatly (more then 50-60% of the cost) , and luckily, for straw bale buildings, that is quite possible, a lot of people did it before, including a punch of school kids as you saw in the video, and families everywhere in the world.

More links for costs of different houses, you can see how much labor cost, and how much other stuff too, and then do the math yourself:

*A House of Straw*

*Straw Bale Home Construction Cost and Green Building Cost*


and just for the sack of it, I will put here some more pics so u can see that there are a lot of these houses out there, with all sizes, colors and kinds.


----------

