Regulations
So how many of the current UK building regulations does this house meet?
Burn it!
Software engineer builds straw house for £4k
A 52-year-old software engineer has built a habitable house for just £4,000 - albeit with a lot of hard graft and a certain amount of scavenging. Steve James slogged for "10 months of actual building time" over four years to put together his Galloway straw domicile, dubbed "The Gatehouse" and constructed with a timber frame, …
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Monday 10th March 2008 15:08 GMT Ian Ferguson
Hmm, let's see...
Ten months of my time, plus an unmentioned number of others (who might be willing to volunteer the once, but not if we all decide to build our own houses)... would cost... yup, a bit more than £10,000.
Sarcasm aside, it is good to see that some people still have basic survival skills. When the revolution comes, he will be a god among us.
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Monday 10th March 2008 15:49 GMT Graham Dawson
@Evil Graham
... I'm the one with the beard, shouldn't I be the evil one?
Anyway I think the preferred term is "rustic", and possibly "characterful", as this allows the inhabitants to pretend they aren't living like a 15th century peasant. Granted, a 15th century peasant with double glazing and a computer, but still...
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Monday 10th March 2008 16:44 GMT Tom
He did it the hard way! + @Regulations
A steel frame doesnt cost a lot and can be banged together quite quickly.
I reckon you could build a good sized 3 bedroomed house for <10k.
And as for Mr Emersen's comment I think you find all necessary regs were observer - otherwise the council would have it pulled down - lime plastered straw wont burn!
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Monday 10th March 2008 16:44 GMT Marvin the Martian
So he hasn't paid for his copy of windows?
Naughty!
"Sarcasm aside, it is good to see that some people still have basic survival skills. When the revolution comes, he will be a god among us."
=> I don't think so. If you look at those "desert island survivor" type game/reality shows, the first ones to be booted off are those with any survival skills as their bossiness (read: frustration when seeing inept hairdresser types ruining their dinner) annoys the lot of em.
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Monday 10th March 2008 16:48 GMT Paul Smith
Who says propoganda doesn't work
Years of hearing the tale of three little pigs, and people no longer believe that wood or straw are up to the job. Try telling them that they are cheaper, cleaner, warmer, drier, healthier, prettier and more comfortable and they just insist their cold, hard, drafty, leaky concrete houses are in some way better.
This news story is probably encouraged by the concrete industry as it does show how badly the job can be done if you put your mind to it.
Mines the coat with the word 'smug' on it.
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Monday 10th March 2008 16:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Regulations and straw-bales
As another 'software engineer' and also 'farmboy' I've been planning my own straw-bale house for some time, albeit a bit larger than this one (6 beds) as one aspect of an off-grid self-sufficient home. I'm expecting to begin building this summer.
There's been at least a couple of straw-bale homes featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs.
Wheat straw is generally treated as a waste product by farmers and is shredded as it comes out the back of the combine-harvester. It could be another useful income stream if there were more use of straw in building.
Contrary to intuition, compressed straw bales between rendered (plaster/lime) walls survive fire tests much better than conventional materials. Studies were done in the U.S.A. and Canada by fire inspectors a few years ago. The outer loose bits will burn but the compaction of the bale itself means there is insufficient oxygen for the entire bale to burn easily.
Lime rendering also breathes and prevents build-up of condensation.
The insulation rating of rendered straw-bale walls is also vastly better than other materials; it stays warm in winter and cool in summer without needing a lot of additional heating or air-conditioning.
Regulations don't prevent the use of straw-bales or other 'alternate' technologies, but they do impose a requirement to demonstrate the proposed materials and design abide by those regulations.
There's quite a thriving community of straw-bale builders across the U.K., Europe and the U.S.A.. Because you can throw regular-sized bales around easily by hand it makes a house-building project a great fun project that groups seem to love to be involved in.
According to studies the building materials for a typical conventional brick 3-bedroom detached house (bricks, breeze-blocks, plaster, roof) cost around £25,000 - for a similar sized straw-bale home, between £1,000 and £3,000 depending on roof-type.
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Monday 10th March 2008 16:51 GMT Kwac
Nothing new
Bit late with the news; houses have been built in this was for a couple of thousand years. Even featured on a Channel 4 programme a few years back - the builder was a forester, and part of the planning permission was that he had to remove it when he left his job.
So yes, planning permission IS required (in Britain) as its a 'permanent structure' and no, fire isn't a problem (compacted straw coated in clay & lime doesn't burn readily).
I understand the use of compacted straw in building is a lot more common in north america than europe. Good insulation (sound as well as heat).
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Monday 10th March 2008 17:10 GMT Adam
Price very wrong...
The material costs may have been around £4000 but the labour costs have been factored out of the equation. Looking at the site, there appears to have been 2 people at a minimum working on the house at any one time and they would need to be experienced 'chippies' to be able to get this right. So 20 months = 80k? (Probably more but lets give them the benefit of doubt here). I would be nice to actually have a figure on the amount of labour involved.
However I do applaud them for what they have done. I do wonder though if they could have gotten away with buying/making a log cabin to a similar standard in a much shorted time. Particularly using the newer twin walled log cabin designs out there.
I do realise this was an exercise in using traditional methods here, but if you are prepared to slap in a velux window, then you might as well go the whole hog and build/buy in a log cabin kit and put the whole thing up in a weekend :)
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Monday 10th March 2008 20:52 GMT Elmer Phud
Re: Big Bad Wolf
The wolf has problems with this construction as it has elements of all three traditional juvenile porcine dwellings in it.
Rather than trying to demolish it he advertised it in Hampstead for £1.5m. a proper killing
Paris as she has been known to do a fair bit of blowing in the past
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Monday 10th March 2008 20:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
And a related story...
The first (straw) and second (twigs) little pigs were found murdered inside the grounds of their homes after a wolf blew their houses away. A third little pig who built his house out of bricks & mortar and was a family member to the two little pigs murdered earlier in the day was detained by police on suspicion of aggravated assault. This was after the third little pig decided to boil a pot of water under the chimney which the wolf used as an entry point for breaking & entering. The wolf who was sent straight to hospital for 1st degree burns is expected to be detained & questioned by police about the murders of the 2 little pigs when he makes a sufficient recovery for questioning.
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Monday 10th March 2008 20:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Software engineer?
52 year old "software engineer" takes 4 calendar years, probably many man years (10 months of "active build time") but "only £4k" to build a house. And it looks like a house worth £4k!
Sounds like he applied the same project management skills to his house building as most people that call themselves something-not-engineer engineers do to other things.
H
(not an engineer)
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Tuesday 11th March 2008 00:51 GMT skeptical i
out on bale
In Southern Arizona some of the local building codes allow use of straw bales in home construction, but not as load-bearing structures (i.e., the walls essentially have to be post- and- beam with straw bales as "filler"). And as has been pointed out already, with a thickness of at least 18" of compacted straw, these walls have amazing insulative properties (and -- bonus! -- are also termite- resistant). As for labour costs, these can be reduced if one takes a page from Tom Sawyer's book by calling the house- raising a "hands- on workshop" and charges folks $50.00 or so to work, er, learn new skills.
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Tuesday 11th March 2008 08:56 GMT yeah, right.
Actually...
Given the relatively uniform level of ignorance in the comments so far, here's one for you. Straw bale houses are actually approved by many building codes, including some that make British ones look positively unsafe. High levels of natural insulation, mostly fireproof (yes folks, it has been tested. It's more fireproof than a typical wood frame house), and even more earthquake and wind proof than many "mainstream" types of building. Overall, it's an excellent construction method.
Although I have to admit his particular construction looks really shoddy. Not bad for a first effort though.
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Tuesday 11th March 2008 08:56 GMT David Shea
Yes please, I'll take one to go...
There's plenty of straw-bale houses out here in Australia. Easy to build, termite resistant (and that's a big plus out here) and great insulating properties (anyone who's lived in a Queenslander over the winter will know all about why insulation should be considered when building a house.)
Personally I'd love to live in a place like that - with a little solar power for the essentials (my Macbook) and a weekly trek to the nearest internet cafe (probably Glasgow)
The penguin, 'cos it's about the most hippy icon you have....
Mine's the thermal long johns and mink coat....
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Tuesday 11th March 2008 13:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Sigh.
Look! Despite extremely advanced technology which would allow the inexpensive construction of a highly efficient, small dwelling with very little labor, we are instead going to break our backs erecting an impractical anachronism!
If you want to tell people to live like peasants, just say it - don't try to claim it's some kind of utopian 'off-the-grid' crap. If you want to actually help people live more efficiently, rather than push your dirt-floor agenda, look at what can actually be done with modern materials and techniques for the same price. As some others have pointed out, you can do a lot with free labor.
I wonder if this guy's oh-so-eco philosophy will extend to his staying in a straw off-the-grid hospital when he's ill. No? Well, then...
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
