HOUSES OF STRAW

The rediscovery of Strawbale building

DVD
PAL, 43min
4 languages: English, French, Spanish and German (voice over)
Price DVD: € 29,90

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For the NTSC version go to:
http://greenplanetfilms.org/product_info.php?products_id=660

Have a look at this clip of "Houses of straw"
Length: 6 min

A Film about the old, and new building material strawbales. This film shows the recent development of this building method in Germany. A house in Lower Saxony it observed during the building process, further examples of strawbale houses explain techniques. In interviews with owners, builders, architects and experts a lot of important questions are discussed.
The DVD contains 4 language versions of this documentary: English, French, Spanish and German (all voice-over)!

Truth window: strawbale building in 7Linden, Germany

Could it be that the house of the future was invented a century ago?
In the 1890s, pioneers of the sandhills of Nebraska found themselves building a new life on a treeless prairie, and from necessity began building their homes from bales of straw. Today modern - day pioneers are choosing straw-bale construction for its many advantages. There are now bale structures in nearly all of the 50 states of the USA and in many other coutries as well. Building with straw bales is probably the only building technique developed originally in the United States and then coming to Europe.

Strawbale dome by Prof.Gernot Minke, Germany

Why build with straw?
Straw is an annually renewable crop, available wherever grain crops are grown. It is indeed a waste product, much of which is currently burnt in the fields. The thick walls offer superior insulation value, averaging R-48 for an 18" wall. With a natural plaster, straw bale walls „breathe," and together with the sound absorbing qualities, provide a quiet, healthy interior environment. Straw bales can also be combined to great effect with other natural building systems.

Strawbale building in Arsbeck, Germany

Construction costs can be reduced heavily: they are cheap to buy and easy to work with. Stacked like huge bricks, straw-bale wall systems can be erected quickly without much building experience. In a wall-raising party, it is common for all the straw bale walls in a modest-size structure to be erected in a single day.

Strawbale building in Northern Germany

In Germany, we followed three house projects through different stages of building. Strawbale arcitect Dirk Scharmer, who founded the first strawbale association in Germany, explains his latest strawbale construction in different stages.

400 m2 Strawbale house in Bavaria

In Bavaria this 400 square metre home was built out of strawbales. In the film you can see a little tour through the finished home - quite a luxurious strawbale palace...

Fire test of a strawbale wall

The German strawbale association gives information about the new way of building, and organises testing of strawbale for construction. In Juli 2003 we filmed a fire test which shows: Strawbale walls don´t burn...
A strawbale wall, plastered with clay, resisted a 1000 degrees Celsius temperature for 90 minutes without any trouble.

Test results and more pictures: FIRE TEST RESULTS