Читать книгу The Organic Garden - Allan Shepherd - Страница 51

Straw bales are an agricultural by-product, the left-over stalks from the grain harvest. Bound together into square bales they form a tight building block. These are assembled in a brick pattern and staked together with connecting hazel rods to make a wall. They are then rendered with a lime plaster to keep the straw protected from the weather and attack by rodents. Interest in straw bale building has grown as the search for more sustainable building materials has widened. Other natural materials of interest to the eco-builder are cob, rammed earth and stone. In low-rise buildings all are a viable alternative to concrete, which uses vast amounts of energy to produce and is generally less pleasant to work with. CAT’s website has a wide range of publications on all these styles of building (see www.cat.org.uk) and its courses department runs several natural building courses throughout the year. These include Timber Frame Self Build, Straw Bale Building, Cob Building, Building with Earth, and Natural Rendering – Clay Plaster. If you want to make your shed out of recycled pallets, check out www.summerville-novascotia.com/PalletWoodShed for a pictorial record and explanations of the building process. And it costs less than $100 (around £54). Also check out Kevin Beale’s factsheet from CAT, ‘How to Build With Straw Bales’, and www.strawbalebuildingassociation.org.uk.