How to Build Your Own Greenhouse with Straw Bales
Straw bale construction is a technique that has been used for thousands of years all around the world. It can produce a sturdy structure to stand for many years. Resources are growing for this intriguing building method that can produce energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly buildings. Straw bales provide an old way to build a beautiful new structure. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Pick and shovel or machinery
- Lumber and nails
- Windows
- Doors
- Straw bales
- Roofing
Instructions
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Plan and create a foundation that will satisfy the building codes of your location. The foundation, whether built by hand or with the assistance of machinery, will need to be the width of your bales. This necessity forms a wide, sturdy foundation for the straw bale construction above.
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Attach a sill to the top of the foundation. This construction needs to be the width of your straw bales, which are most often baled at 18 inches wide.
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Frame all doors and windows with 18-inch wide frames. These will be inserted into your building at selected spots as the walls go up.
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Separate the bales into halves and quarters. This will facilitate the wall-building process, especially around doors and windows.
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Build walls as you would build with gigantic bricks, overlapping the top bales across the seams of the previous row. Reinforce each row with re-bar hammered down through the center of the bales to stabilize them. For a greenhouse, you should not make the bales load bearing, as much of your wall space will be windows. Northern latitudes need to allow for the weight of heavy winter snows. If you feel uncertain, contact a qualified professional for advice.
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Choose the roofing you'll need. Consult with professional builders, books, and other references (including those to this article) for the best design that takes your latitude into account.
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Stretch hardware cloth or a similar wire and attach it across the bale walls so that stucco material can be applied. Recipes for this material are varied and available from many sources online and in books. Steer toward the recipes that contain more concrete, as they will be the most water resistant for your greenhouse. Finishing a straw bale greenhouse can camouflage it so that no one will ever realize it was constructed of straw.
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