Instead, the Amsterdam-based pair envisioned a home with a minimal ecological footprint. As first-time builders, they combined elements from various approaches ”“ a straw bale house with a gravel ...

A straw bale house is made using straw as either a main structural element, insulation, or both. The buildings are constructed by stacking rows of compact straw bales on a strong foundation before ...

Roberta Strickler Jan 19, 2007 Jan 19, 2007 Updated Sep 11, 2013 Straw bale houses of the western Nebraska prairies were comfortable places built where there were no trees or sod. In Lancaster County, ...

Straw bale creates a healing environment for Michele to do her energy work. She says her patients claim to feel better before she even puts her hands on them. Chickens and guinea hens, which share a ...

Do you recommend building straw bale homes? And/or can you insulate an existing home with straw bales on the outside of the home and then finish it using siding, wood, or stucco? I wonder why this ...

When you hear about a straw bale building, you might think of a big bad wolf huffing and puffing. But these houses are not just in fairy tales. Builders in San Diego County are turning to straw bales ...

HOVLAND -- A half-mile down a dirt driveway through woods, a stack of straw bales signals one's arrival at Chris and Cameron Norman's new home. Approach the house, and the scattering of straw on the ...

The bales are also good for stacking into play forts, but this time of year, when nights are still cool and the vegetables of summer are calling to be planted, straw bales suffice as building material ...

Traditional building techniques and modern technology come together in the House in Berne, a self-sufficient straw bale house in Graben, a Swiss village located less than an hour’s drive north of Bern ...

In Clinton, Mary Ellen Blakey is building a straw house even the Big Bad Wolf couldn’t blow down. Nearly 10 years ago, Blakey read a magazine article about straw bale houses, which piqued her ...