Customer Reviews

Building a Straw Bale House: The Red Feather Construction Handbook

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Frankly, I like this book, despite my 2-star rating of it. It has some excellent information in it as well as excellent photos, and it is well laid out. However, it is intended for very specific and limited uses, which are not really disclosed in the product description. So, read on to learn what I had to discover about its limitations through trial and error:

This is NOT a book on the theory and history of straw bale construction. It spends very little, if any, time outlining the different styles of bale construction, nor the variety of techniques and details that have been tried over the years, nor the many factors - environmental, structural, practical - affecting a particular construction project that might make the builder choose one technique or detail over another. If you are a new owner/builder at the conceptual stage, trying to decide if a bale house is right for you, or how exactly to build the bale house that is best for you, this is NOT the book you want.

This book focuses on one philosophy of design only. It is a guide, not on how to build a bale house, but on how to build one specific bale house. What I find troubling is that it does not even explain, in most cases, why the methods being described were chosen. If you already know a good deal about bale construction, you will quickly read between the lines to see why the authors consider their chosen techniques most suitable for their situation - I did, and quickly determined that little in the book was applicable to my own situation. Ok, fair enough. But, if you do not already understand the basics of straw bale architecture, I can easily imagine the reader following this book down what might well be the wrong path for his or her own project and, at best, wasting a lot of time in the design stage considering inappropriate techniques. At worst, the reader could end up making some very poor and costly choices without realizing why they are poor.

So, what is this book good for? It presents a straight-forward, step-by-step guide to project planning for a particular type of builder attempting a particular type of project. It does not present enough technical details or drawings to be a comprehensive construction manual (what book does?), so it will not take the place of preparing blueprints or having them prepared for you. But, it is nonetheless an excellent place to start IF AND ONLY IF you are...

1) ...Poor, or otherwise interested in building a small, simple, budget-oriented house for a single family. Don't get me wrong: the house this book describes is perfectly sound, perfectly livable, and should last longer than most conventional houses, but it is definitely "no-frills." Frankly, all Americans should be focusing on more modest, economical, and sustainable housing, regardless of income level. Be that as it may, if you are wanting something bigger - multiple stories, luxury oriented, more architecturally unique - you will not find it here.

2) ...Part of a large community or very large family interested in helping you build this house quickly through a massive and intensive volunteer effort. If your access to volunteer resources is more modest and your construction schedule, therefore, more relaxed, you could well run into serious problems trying to follow the path laid out in this book. If you plan on hiring only professionals to build your house for you, well, you probably shouldn't build a bale house in the first place, but at the least you will need to find different books.

3) ...West of the Mississippi and building in a very dry environment. All throughout this book you will find details - 3 string bales, metal rebar inserted into the bales, moderately sized roof overhangs, cement-based plaster with ground-to-ceiling stucco mesh - that are either unique to the West or generally appropriate to a desert or prairie climate. For builders in other areas, most of this book likely does not apply to you.

4) ...Interested in a load-bearing straw bale design. See my note on rebar, cement plaster, and stucco mesh above. There is also much in the book on full structural window and door bucks as well as building a roof-bearing-assembly top plate. Of course, there is nothing wrong with load-bearing bale walls, but in many parts of the country they are no longer the most widely-accepted design solution.

I first became aware of straw base houses when I visited friends who had built one high in the Colorado rockies. In spite of the bad winters in that location, they reported that they very rarely used any heating beyond opening the drapes on the south facing windows. I don't know what the R-value of a bale of straw might be, but it is high.

They also reported that in the few years they had lived there they had had virtually no maintenance. I had imagined little cracks in the exterior covering and furry little critters living in the walls. But they reported that nothing like this had occurred.

This book is put out by the Red Feather Development Group. They are a non-profit group chartered to provide low cost but efficient housing on indian reservations. They have been developing straw bale contruction for houses over many years, many buildings.

This handbook is not exactly a complete primer on building a straw bale house, to me it is an idea book. There's not much here, for instance on plumbing, heating, wiring and so on. Fair enough, those things are much the same for any house, and well understood by architects and contractors. What this book does is talk about building the house itself, the wall structure, supporting the roof, the things that are unique to building with Straw Bales. There are lots of pictures, illustrating lots of points that you wouldn't think of unless you had been there and done that.

Highly recommended!

When Red Feather Development Group founded in 1994, its mission was to build and develop affordable and ecological sound straw bail houses for the American Indian community. In recent years, the work of the Red Feather Development Group has drawn interest as many environmental and green building groups have developed.

Due to the increase of interest, the group has released "Building a Straw Bale House: The Red Feather Construction Handbook".

The handbook is a great guide for anybody wanting to better understand the principles of straw bale construction. With step-by-step construction directions and wonderful illustrations, "Building a Straw Bale House" makes the topic approachable and simple to create similar versions of the building technique.

For example, the author provides the reader/builder with numeral step-by-step instructions for constructing the foundation, the correct mix for the interior finish coat, and radiant floor heating diagrams. Everything that may need to be known for constructing a straw house is available in its book, which that in itself is notable.

"Building a Straw Bale House" succeeds in bringing an interesting construction type into the limelight, but the principle of its origin is even more admirable - providing affordable and sustainable housing to individuals.

This is an honest assessment of a particular point in a learning curve. And I'd bet that point on the curve is well beyond most of us who've been researching straw bale building. Our troop of friends have taken a workshop put on by the Iron Straw group (ironstraw.org), and although it was informative, this book is a wonderful step ahead of what could be taught in a weekend workshop. Very useful construction handbook, and a worthy cause to be promoting by purchase.

I was the first to borrow this book from our local public library, and even as the borrowed library version is sitting on my desk, I'm buying at Amazon today.

Great photos, tips, and full upfront acknowledgement that the book is a moment in time/written from a particular point in the Red Feather program's evolution in straw bale building.

We'll be building our first straw bale residence the Fall of 2006 in Pend Oreille County in Ea. Washington state. You can bet this sturdy handbook will be on site, somewhere in the straw, and splattered with earthen plaster just like the happy soiling that goes on in when a cookbook is left open for reference in a real cook's kitchen.

Enjoy!

This book gives an over view of the process to build a home using straw bale construction that is used by the Red Feather Development Group. Modeled after Habitat for Humanity they help tribal members living on Indian reservations achieve home ownership. The book takes you through the building process with many photos and diagrams. There is also pictures and discriptions of straw bale homes that are still lived in after 80 years, showing that sustainable housing is not a passing fad.

We just finished building our own strawbale home and have read pretty much all the straw bale books published within the last several years. The Red Feather Handbook was, by far, the easiest quick reference as we delved into elements such as lime plastering recipes and building toe-ups to keep bales dry. The book lays out information in the real world sequence of actual building. This is an excellent hands-on reference.

This is a great how-to book. Not a lot of theory or "why straw?". If you are already convinced that you need a reasonable size straw house, you can just grab this guide and go. Very in depth detail, from site selection and preparation for zero depth foundation ,to step by step numbered instructions with photos. I haven't built one yet using this book, but I could.
The only thing I found lacking was info about codes. I suspect that since they are building on reservations they don't have to deal with that. This is a load bearing bale wall and those are not accepted everywhere. The foundation is also not standard. They have proven that this system works, but can you sell it to code enforcement?

Even though we could not use this technique (load-bearing straw-bale) in our state, due to code, the information is still good and much of it still applies to post-beam construction. If you are really interested in this building method, you should read everything you can get your hands on before building. HOWEVER - do recognize that some things in this particular book are no longer used in SB building, such as chicken wire outside the bale walls.

Be aware that there is still little consensus about particular SB building techniques - you'll find one architect or builder married to one method and another who is equally passionate about his style. There are some things you'll want to avoid because they have been proven in actual testing (don't use rebar coming up from the concrete foundation to skewer the first few course of bales, for example - rebar wicks moisture up from the slab into the bales). Just read everything you can about the various methods, including what's been actually researched, and decide which method would work best for you.

If you can build a load-bearing SB house in your area, this book is the premier handbook on the subject, as long as you have researched what's changed since its writing. It's quite detailed, has lots of good photos and would get you well along the way constructing your SB house yourself.

181 pages chock full of building techniques and illustrations thorough enough to get anyone started on their own strawbale home. I would have enjoyed more details on foundations, but there are books specifically for them. Enjoy this book then build your own comfort zone. Printed and nound in China.

This is the 3rd (or 4th?) book I've bought about Strawbale building. We are planning to build in the spring. It will be a Nebraska Style Strawbale (load bearing bales). Wish I had bought this book first! Great instruction, tips, etc. I had to buy from a bookseller as Amazon was out...Boulder Books I believe was the name. Really fast delvery, and the book was every bit as good as new! Never be apprehensive about buying from them!