straw bale build - small scale

[ellesherwood]

hi there everyone, i want to build myself a potting shed out of straw bales sloping window to catch all the sun and the amazing insulating properties of straw bale, i think the chunky look would be very sympathetic to the look of my old house and i like the idea of using locally sourced products . can anyone give me any advice . especially how do you stop rodents from making it 'their place' and as its a 'shed ' do i need foundations for it and what sort. this is something i have wanted to do for so long but am - if you will pardon the pun - starting from the ground up. so all help and advice really is most welcome. really look forward to hearing from you and i will post photos when i get started

ps - ground here is clay and is also very prone to holding water , lots of natural springs etc also lots of rain so it is very rarely dry.

[Sky]

I'm wanting to build a sleepout for my son using the same method so I'll watch this thread with interest.
Old car tyres are supposed to make a good base aren't they, filled with gravel and on a gravel base?
I have a book somewhere and we did look into building our house the same way but the council here are totally against the idea completely after the leaky building fiasco in nz.

[TheGoodEarth]

Check these out.

http://www.amazonails.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk/index.shtml

There is loads of info on the web, just search for "straw bale building" and for tyres search "earthship"

[naturalhomes]

I guess this will have lots of information for you too. 151 strawbale houses around the World with links to the owner's blog or website:

http://naturalhomes.org/ecohouselist.htm?strawbale

Regards, Oliver

[ellesherwood]

Thank you so much for the web links , really useful . i am waiting for the good weather to see where the land dries best and them we will be picking a spot for the potting shed . we are absolute beginners so we will keep you informed as to how this pans out in the end. either it will be an amazing experience or it will be a big pile of soggy straw inhabited by rats . lets hope its the former.

[mybarnconversion]

Really interested in doing a similar thing myself so please keep us updated...

Would love to see what costs are like in comparison to more traditional alternatives