Your series is awesome. There is tons of content out there but a serious lack of end to end instructing and how to. When you are done with the series I will know everything I need to in order to build a straw bale house. I now have confidence that I can build one. Thank you.
Getting ready to build a straw bale house on Mexico this is going to be interesting being thT I retired as a Mechanic for 42 years me with pencil and tape measure lost thank you gonna watch your videos big time
Really good show Bill! You did some really controlled cutting to square up the bales. A lot of people we know would be cutting bale strings. We’re so glad that straw bales are affordable in your area. We’re watching to see how it goes for you two. Build on and just film! Take care.
Thanks for watching and your kind words! I have only popped one string so far, and it wasn't while squaring up a bale. It was making a plunge cut for a wooden stake near the edge of a bale. I let the chain saw get a bit out of vertical and nicked the center string, which we immediately retied. Have a great weekend!
@@theupsideofdownsizing awesome that you could retire that string. When and where I grew up, many of the bales were secured with wire. Nasty stuff but hard to break.
Oh man, I guess I really committed myself now didn't I🤣 I'm actually looking forward to making more videos on a regular basis. Next thing you know, I will be uploading them on a set day and time. 😉 We're glad you both are enjoying our projects and hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
Bill I would have never thought to trip the ends of the bales thinking I would simply just end up cutting into the baling twine and having it all fall apart. But seeing how you do it totally makes sense.
I got this tip from the book I mentioned are the beginning of the previous video. The bales lock together really nice. Managed not to cut a single string too.
Thanks Dan. UA-cam is an awesome source for ideas and motivation as well. I like it a whole lot more than the Encyclopedia Britannica we had as kids growing up. 😉
Now you guys are getting pace and that is great as far as it is under your control. Bill you're lucky to have Yvonne as your life companion. You guys are my one of favorite couples. Greetings from Karachi. 💐
There is a straw bale contractor in Texas by the name of Clay Sand Straw that drives a wooden spike vertically into a bale alongside a buck, then drives a long screw horizontally through the spike and into the buck. It seems to work, both for strengthening the bales as well as setting the bucks. Looking good!
I have seen what is available from them on UA-cam. Anyone who can build a straw bale house with a baby on the hip is on e heck of a builder! Thanks for watching!
We are looking to build a straw bale house up in Canada in the next year. I'm finding these videos to be so helpful as we make decisions on design and planning the build. I may have questions, indeed....I just found your channel a couple of days ago, though, so it's hard to know what to ask just yet. Thank you for archiving your build!
Love your videos. We want to start building our straw bale off grid home in Manitoba Canada in the spring. Hope you will have great success with your build!
Bill and Yvonne, Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving day! Since y'all love to cook, I imagine that you'll come up with a very tasty meal to share. Love you guys! ❤️🌵☀️⛈️🌈☮️🐎🦃
Well thank you Laurie! We had some homemade pizza ( new no knead dough recipe) last night. Since we don't have a traditional oven, there's no turkey on the menu tonight, but plenty of sides😀. And I did make homemade apple sauce this morning....apple pie without the crust. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
@@theupsideofdownsizing Thank you! Well that sounds pretty good to me 🙂 all though, you shouldn't let the fact that you don't have an oven stop you from doing a turkey. When we used to spend the holiday at the sand dunes, in california, they used to cook at least one buried in a hole, with hot coals. Don't remember everything involved, or how it came out, but it could be fun. Talking about it has me wanting to give it a try some day😏
Thanks Jim. We did take it kind of easy today, but we had to do something. After all, I need raw footage for the next video. Clocks a tickin' 🤣 Congrats on 20k! You guys are an inspiration. Happy Thanksgiving!
Love the inventive stuff Bill. Like altering rebar to secure the window buckings into the bales. Nice invention and nice neat work with everything you do there.
1st saw you guys talking to Green Dream Project a while back, pleased you popped up in my utube inbox today...just subbed so i can keep an eye on you :DDDDDD
@@theupsideofdownsizing , tell Jim he needs to get a skid steer or similar, that may save his back and make life so much esaier, he dosen't listen to me, he may listen to you.. :DDDDDDDDD
All you guys with welders are making me totally jealous! Just kidding of course. I wish I had a welder. This was the best I could come up with as an alternative. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
You should definitely do a timelapse of the house build when the roof is on and you've cobbed the side. I watch many channels of people building their own homes and it's always the timelapse videos that get the most views and attracts subscribers.
Handeeman showed me his permanent cameras he has set up to record everything. I've been thinking about this and trying to figure out where I could even set up something like that. Thanks for the reminder and for watching!
Thank you for making these videos! Since I learned people made straw houses, I’ve wondered how they were made. It’s very interesting to watch your progress!
Thanks for watching Mary! Keep watching and who knows, there may very well be a Straw Bale House in your future too 😀 That's pretty much what happened to us.
just a thought, if you have a welder, welding the washers on the rebar would be faster, and you could counterbore the holes so they are below flush as well to avoid any window clearance issues later. Depending on who you know and how much you value your time farming those out, IE having them cut them to length and weld the washers on may or may not be cost effective. ETA, it may not be as much as an issue in straw bales as they have more give than logs, but in log construction the pins in the bucks ar driven in slots in the bucking so they can move as things settle.
Here in the UK, you'd pay thr equivalent of $25/30 for a corner clamp like yours. Great progress 👏 I've watched some other SBH building and they look totally chaotic because there are so many hangers on learning how to do it. With your build and videoing, it is very clear and well explained.👍
Oh I could find a corner clamp for that price too, but we're lucky ( and maybe sometimes not so lucky) to have Harbor Freight as a source for less expensive tools. Unfortunately they seem to be changing their business model and the really awesome deals are harder and harder to find. Thanks for watching!
Nifty trick creating the rebar spikes! I have a question, and I hope I didn't miss this explanation somewhere. Can you explain the logic behind the door bucks being the full depth of the bale wall, while the window bucks are not?
because of how doors are installed, having the Bucks the full width of the bail allow us the option of installing the door on the inside or outside of the buck. With Windows there's only one option and that's from the outside. Good question though, thanks for watching!
Great progress! I like the rebar wedge idea for the window bucks. Thinking on your feet, or did the boss come up with that one during his break?🤣 Happy Thanksgiving 🦃
We didn’t trim our bales because we wanted all the straw but it wasn’t difficult to stuff in between bales. Doing a post and beam due to our wind speed per the county could be 115 MPH so it was engineered for that. Still a lot of hard work both ways. Nice to see the bales going up.
In our previous 2 builds, we never trimmed the bales and it didn't really bother me cause Yvonne was responsible for stuffing the gaps. 😉 But this building is 4x bigger than anything we've done before, so if I can cut down on the stuffing time, I'm happy to do it. The shavings will be perfect for our earthen plaster too. Thanks for watching and your input!
Thanks for your question. Our layout is really not much more than a rough sketch in my notebook, but I will talk about it in the next video. Thanks for watching and the suggestion.👍
Easy does it standing on the last step of the ladder Bill. From someone who is 65 here. Men over 60 in ladders.. hmm not necessarily a good mix at times.
You are so right, and did you see the wind blowing the camera on the tripod around? I have a variety of food quality ladders and why is I always seem to end up in the cheapie 29 dollar Walmart one. Thanks for the reminder. 👍
I can't wait to learn from this build, thank you for the detailed content! I am wondering why you guys chose to not do the strapping like you did with the tool shed bales? Is it because this is a larger structure and the rebar alone will be stronger? Thanks!
Thanks for watching and your question We will definitely be using the straping as we did with both the Toolshed and the Solar Shed. The strapping will go over the wall and top plate once the full height is reached. It'll be fed through the slots I made in the toe ups and it'll cinch together the entire wall. Here's the video about the toe ups. ua-cam.com/video/-1t-WGALL5A/v-deo.html We used rebar in both previous builds as well the difference being, this time we're using it in multiple stages whereas in the Toolshed build, we just used rebar once going through the entire height of the wall.
Hi, congrats for the project and for sharing it!! I'm not sure if you have spoken about that already, but I was wondering about how big is going to be the house. How many sqm? Do you have plans that you would like to share? Either way, I will keep following the built. I'm starting my own project in 2 years time and I'm glad someone is doing a step by step straw bale construction. Thank you.
Thanks for watching! I will be showing some floor plans in the next video. Nothing is set in stone, that's just how I roll, bit it'll give everyone an idea of what it's supposed to look like when done. The size is 720 square feet or 67 square meters.
Air and water/humidity are kept to a minimum/ (almost non existent) inside a properly baled and plastered strawbale wall. Our climate is inherently arid so it poses little to know concern. I have also seen people use plated threaded rod to stabilize their strawbale walls. It's a bit more complicated and expensive but certainly a good idea for those who are concerned with rebar rusting. But again, I don't think it poses a problem at all
@@theupsideofdownsizing I see what you are saying about plated rod, I try to understand the idea of the characteristic of most strawbalr houses that are airtight, right? I learned that the clay has the capability to store moisture and release overtime. Hence the pleasant inside climate. I do think that you are right that the moisture won't reach all the way to the inside of the bale
Oh how I wish I had a welder. What I could do with that. I also had the idea of using threaded rod. Driving it through the floor and bolting it together. What stopped me was trying to figure out where to drill the holes in the deck for the rod. Thanks for the suggestion and for watching!
The beauty of straw bale is that they don't burn. Worst case scenario, they smolder. When you look at the homes that survived the wildfires in California last year, they were mostly straw bale.
this channel is super underrated
More videos you say? Awesome =).
Gr8t work
Waiting 4 or vids
Beautiful greetings from Saudi Arabia
Your series is awesome. There is tons of content out there but a serious lack of end to end instructing and how to. When you are done with the series I will know everything I need to in order to build a straw bale house. I now have confidence that I can build one. Thank you.
Thanks Joel! I'm glad you are finding our videos helpful. 👍
Getting ready to build a straw bale house on Mexico this is going to be interesting being thT I retired as a Mechanic for 42 years me with pencil and tape measure lost thank you gonna watch your videos big time
Things are happening, great to see the progress, now that the distraction of the flood is done.
We are very excited about the build too! Thanks for watching!
The Boss Napping ... so cute!
She loves that straw😀
Really good show Bill! You did some really controlled cutting to square up the bales. A lot of people we know would be cutting bale strings. We’re so glad that straw bales are affordable in your area. We’re watching to see how it goes for you two. Build on and just film! Take care.
Thanks for watching and your kind words! I have only popped one string so far, and it wasn't while squaring up a bale. It was making a plunge cut for a wooden stake near the edge of a bale. I let the chain saw get a bit out of vertical and nicked the center string, which we immediately retied. Have a great weekend!
@@theupsideofdownsizing awesome that you could retire that string. When and where I grew up, many of the bales were secured with wire. Nasty stuff but hard to break.
2 videos sounds great as my wife Anna and I live vicariously through your project.
Happy thanksgiving Bill and Yvonne.
Oh man, I guess I really committed myself now didn't I🤣 I'm actually looking forward to making more videos on a regular basis. Next thing you know, I will be uploading them on a set day and time. 😉 We're glad you both are enjoying our projects and hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
Happy Turkey 🦃 Day
Bill I would have never thought to trip the ends of the bales thinking I would simply just end up cutting into the baling twine and having it all fall apart. But seeing how you do it totally makes sense.
I got this tip from the book I mentioned are the beginning of the previous video. The bales lock together really nice. Managed not to cut a single string too.
Great Project Bill and Yvonne really informative info
2/week is a great idea!
Nice work! Thank you for the project and sharing step by step of straw bale construction. Happy Thanksgiving .
To you as well! Thanks for watching!
I love that right angle clamp what a life saver that is...
Yup, that extra set of hands. Thanks for watching!
Das macht Ihr ganz toll. Bin stolz auf Euch 👍☺👍👍
Vielen Dank! ❤️
Happy Thanksgiving from south Florida.
Awesome videos! Thanks for sharing!
Inteligent work
Nice. thanks for sharing
Thank you for sharing, I get some good ideas on how to do things from you, keeps my mind working.
Thanks Dan. UA-cam is an awesome source for ideas and motivation as well. I like it a whole lot more than the Encyclopedia Britannica we had as kids growing up. 😉
Can’t wait, love the two videos a week idea. Have a blessed thanksgiving, Thank you for great content.
Thanks for watching! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Now you guys are getting pace and that is great as far as it is under your control.
Bill you're lucky to have Yvonne as your life companion. You guys are my one of favorite couples.
Greetings from Karachi.
💐
Thank you and believe me, I know how very lucky I am. Have a great day!
I love your videos. I seems to be easy and I hope I could start my straw bale house soon. Greetings from Spain
Thanks for watching and if we can do it, you can too, but you have to really want it. 👍
Coming right along and looking good. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks CB! Stay safe and have a great Thanksgiving!
There is a straw bale contractor in Texas by the name of Clay Sand Straw that drives a wooden spike vertically into a bale alongside a buck, then drives a long screw horizontally through the spike and into the buck. It seems to work, both for strengthening the bales as well as setting the bucks. Looking good!
I have seen what is available from them on UA-cam. Anyone who can build a straw bale house with a baby on the hip is on e heck of a builder! Thanks for watching!
I'm loving this project!
We are looking to build a straw bale house up in Canada in the next year. I'm finding these videos to be so helpful as we make decisions on design and planning the build. I may have questions, indeed....I just found your channel a couple of days ago, though, so it's hard to know what to ask just yet. Thank you for archiving your build!
Thanks for watching and we're always happy to answer any questions you may have, if I can 😉
Have a safe and great Thanksgiving you two from our house to yours.
Thanks Steve!🙏
Love your videos. We want to start building our straw bale off grid home in Manitoba Canada in the spring. Hope you will have great success with your build!
Bill and Yvonne,
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving day! Since y'all love to cook, I imagine that you'll come up with a very tasty meal to share.
Love you guys!
❤️🌵☀️⛈️🌈☮️🐎🦃
Well thank you Laurie! We had some homemade pizza ( new no knead dough recipe) last night. Since we don't have a traditional oven, there's no turkey on the menu tonight, but plenty of sides😀. And I did make homemade apple sauce this morning....apple pie without the crust. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
@@theupsideofdownsizing
Thank you!
Well that sounds pretty good to me 🙂 all though, you shouldn't let the fact that you don't have an oven stop you from doing a turkey.
When we used to spend the holiday at the sand dunes, in california, they used to cook at least one buried in a hole, with hot coals.
Don't remember everything involved, or how it came out, but it could be fun. Talking about it has me wanting to give it a try some day😏
Looking good!
Thanks for watching!👍
Two a week! Slow down!😆
We hope you two took a break today. We actually did a half day.😆👍
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks Jim. We did take it kind of easy today, but we had to do something. After all, I need raw footage for the next video. Clocks a tickin' 🤣 Congrats on 20k! You guys are an inspiration. Happy Thanksgiving!
Love the inventive stuff Bill. Like altering rebar to secure the window buckings into the bales. Nice invention and nice neat work with everything you do there.
Glad you can concentrate on construction and didn’t have to start this build season with infrastructure or foundation. It was a good plan.
I hope we can get the house dried in before it gets too cold. Cobbing in the winter is no fun. Thanks for watching!
1st saw you guys talking to Green Dream Project a while back, pleased you popped up in my utube inbox today...just subbed so i can keep an eye on you :DDDDDD
Cool! Thanks for watching. Jim and Jessica have an awesome project going on too. We don't miss an episode. 👍
@@theupsideofdownsizing , tell Jim he needs to get a skid steer or similar, that may save his back and make life so much esaier, he dosen't listen to me, he may listen to you.. :DDDDDDDDD
my first idea would have been welding a washer onto the rebarb, but i thin your idea may work fine
All you guys with welders are making me totally jealous! Just kidding of course. I wish I had a welder. This was the best I could come up with as an alternative. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
You should definitely do a timelapse of the house build when the roof is on and you've cobbed the side. I watch many channels of people building their own homes and it's always the timelapse videos that get the most views and attracts subscribers.
Handeeman showed me his permanent cameras he has set up to record everything. I've been thinking about this and trying to figure out where I could even set up something like that. Thanks for the reminder and for watching!
Thank you for making these videos! Since I learned people made straw houses, I’ve wondered how they were made. It’s very interesting to watch your progress!
Thanks for watching Mary! Keep watching and who knows, there may very well be a Straw Bale House in your future too 😀 That's pretty much what happened to us.
Вы оба красавчики привет из россии
just a thought, if you have a welder, welding the washers on the rebar would be faster, and you could counterbore the holes so they are below flush as well to avoid any window clearance issues later. Depending on who you know and how much you value your time farming those out, IE having them cut them to length and weld the washers on may or may not be cost effective. ETA, it may not be as much as an issue in straw bales as they have more give than logs, but in log construction the pins in the bucks ar driven in slots in the bucking so they can move as things settle.
One day I'll learn to weld. It's been on my list of things to learn for many years now.
Here in the UK, you'd pay thr equivalent of $25/30 for a corner clamp like yours. Great progress 👏 I've watched some other SBH building and they look totally chaotic because there are so many hangers on learning how to do it. With your build and videoing, it is very clear and well explained.👍
Oh I could find a corner clamp for that price too, but we're lucky ( and maybe sometimes not so lucky) to have Harbor Freight as a source for less expensive tools. Unfortunately they seem to be changing their business model and the really awesome deals are harder and harder to find. Thanks for watching!
Nifty trick creating the rebar spikes! I have a question, and I hope I didn't miss this explanation somewhere. Can you explain the logic behind the door bucks being the full depth of the bale wall, while the window bucks are not?
because of how doors are installed, having the Bucks the full width of the bail allow us the option of installing the door on the inside or outside of the buck. With Windows there's only one option and that's from the outside. Good question though, thanks for watching!
Great progress! I like the rebar wedge idea for the window bucks. Thinking on your feet, or did the boss come up with that one during his break?🤣 Happy Thanksgiving 🦃
That one was my idea, but she did give it the seal of approval. Happy Thanksgiving!
We didn’t trim our bales because we wanted all the straw but it wasn’t difficult to stuff in between bales. Doing a post and beam due to our wind speed per the county could be 115 MPH so it was engineered for that. Still a lot of hard work both ways. Nice to see the bales going up.
In our previous 2 builds, we never trimmed the bales and it didn't really bother me cause Yvonne was responsible for stuffing the gaps. 😉 But this building is 4x bigger than anything we've done before, so if I can cut down on the stuffing time, I'm happy to do it. The shavings will be perfect for our earthen plaster too. Thanks for watching and your input!
Have you come across Barbara Jones in the UK...she is a mine of practical information
👍🏽👊🏽
Surprised you didnt have to pre-drill all of your screws being inserted/bucking work Bill
🤣 I know, I have been known to pre drill a time or two. I managed to get these things built without a single board splitting 👍. Thanks for watching!
Could you do a quick tour of how you want to layout the house? How many BR/Bath...square footage. Apologies if your put this info out before.
Thanks for your question. Our layout is really not much more than a rough sketch in my notebook, but I will talk about it in the next video. Thanks for watching and the suggestion.👍
Easy does it standing on the last step of the ladder Bill. From someone who is 65 here. Men over 60 in ladders.. hmm not necessarily a good mix at times.
You are so right, and did you see the wind blowing the camera on the tripod around? I have a variety of food quality ladders and why is I always seem to end up in the cheapie 29 dollar Walmart one. Thanks for the reminder. 👍
I can't wait to learn from this build, thank you for the detailed content! I am wondering why you guys chose to not do the strapping like you did with the tool shed bales? Is it because this is a larger structure and the rebar alone will be stronger?
Thanks!
Thanks for watching and your question
We will definitely be using the straping as we did with both the Toolshed and the Solar Shed. The strapping will go over the wall and top plate once the full height is reached. It'll be fed through the slots I made in the toe ups and it'll cinch together the entire wall. Here's the video about the toe ups.
ua-cam.com/video/-1t-WGALL5A/v-deo.html
We used rebar in both previous builds as well the difference being, this time we're using it in multiple stages whereas in the Toolshed build, we just used rebar once going through the entire height of the wall.
@@theupsideofdownsizing Great info, thank you!!!
Hi, congrats for the project and for sharing it!! I'm not sure if you have spoken about that already, but I was wondering about how big is going to be the house. How many sqm? Do you have plans that you would like to share? Either way, I will keep following the built. I'm starting my own project in 2 years time and I'm glad someone is doing a step by step straw bale construction. Thank you.
Thanks for watching! I will be showing some floor plans in the next video. Nothing is set in stone, that's just how I roll, bit it'll give everyone an idea of what it's supposed to look like when done. The size is 720 square feet or 67 square meters.
will the rebar rust and will it cause damage to the bale later on?
Air and water/humidity are kept to a minimum/ (almost non existent) inside a properly baled and plastered strawbale wall. Our climate is inherently arid so it poses little to know concern. I have also seen people use plated threaded rod to stabilize their strawbale walls. It's a bit more complicated and expensive but certainly a good idea for those who are concerned with rebar rusting. But again, I don't think it poses a problem at all
@@theupsideofdownsizing I see what you are saying about plated rod, I try to understand the idea of the characteristic of most strawbalr houses that are airtight, right? I learned that the clay has the capability to store moisture and release overtime. Hence the pleasant inside climate.
I do think that you are right that the moisture won't reach all the way to the inside of the bale
why dont you weld a spike on the rebar and you can nail it to the floor
Oh how I wish I had a welder. What I could do with that. I also had the idea of using threaded rod. Driving it through the floor and bolting it together. What stopped me was trying to figure out where to drill the holes in the deck for the rod. Thanks for the suggestion and for watching!
@@theupsideofdownsizing 150.00 CHEAP MIG WEILDER
Is there a fire retardant the straw bales could be sprayed with?
The beauty of straw bale is that they don't burn. Worst case scenario, they smolder. When you look at the homes that survived the wildfires in California last year, they were mostly straw bale.