Straw Bale House at Quinta dos Melros

Straw Bale course with Andrew Morrison in Portugal

2011-07-06T10:07:00.001+01:00

Seven Day Comprehencive Straw Bale Construction Workshop
with Andrew Morrison of StrawBale.com

800$ USD (includes all meals, showers and camping)
Sign Up Today!

If you can't attend this workshop due to its cost please contact us at strawbaleworkshop2011@gmail.com so we can find a solution (Portuguese only).

August 1-7, 2011 in Paul, Portugal
(class to be taught in English)

Topics include:

- Design and Engineering Options
- Toe Up Installation
- Bale Stacking
- Bale Re-Tying and Alteration
- Box Beam Construction and installation
- Electrical Work
- Plumbing Installations
- Hanging Cabinetry
- Attaching Interior Partition Walls
- Shaping Bales and Corners
- Creating Niches
- Plaster Prep Work
- Natural Plastering
- And Much, Much More...

SIGH UP TODAY AT WWW.STRAWBALEWORKSHOPS.COM

In the registration comments section, please mention "HUGO"

Desenhos técnicos de casa de fardos de palha em Quinta dos Melros por Vera Filipa Ripley

2010-08-26T10:51:00.000+01:00

Casa de banho/ Bathroom

2010-05-09T22:34:00.007+01:00

Estámos agradecidos a Rita para fazer a casa de banho.
Thank you Rita for helping us do the bathroom, it´s great! Just waiting for the tiles for the top part of the wall.

Está rebocado em cima

2010-05-02T22:25:00.000+01:00

Obrigado o Pedro, Duarte, Sofia, Salvador, Ray e Suzy fazer as acabamentos.

Strawbale building course

2010-04-16T09:04:00.002+01:00

Build a mini studio - 3rd to 6th June

Lead by architect Catarina Pinto and eco-builder Eduardo Buzaglo in Casa-Shanti. 4 hours of theory and 26h of practical construction.

Price including accommodation (4 nights) and all meals: 340€
Course and 4 meals: 220€
(20€ discount to inscriptions until 15th May)

Local: Casa-Shanti, Mafra www.casa-shanti.com

For more information please contact us:

catarinapinto@terrapalha.com

mobile: +351 933 291 112

www.terrapalha.blogspot.com

Marble kitchen top

2010-04-11T12:21:00.005+01:00

We have a marble kitchen top. Very nice. Now i just have to get the pump working (to fill the tank) and then we will have water in the house again.

Casa de banho/ Bathroom

2010-02-26T20:23:00.007Z

Estou a fazer o encanamento de casa de banho. Usamos tubos de cobre (muito bom passar agua). Vai ser mais fotos em breve.

P.S. Parabens meu amor acabar a teses!!!

Parede interior

2010-01-11T23:20:00.003Z

Tratado com oleo de linhaça e aguarrás.

Plastering the living room

2009-12-05T23:01:00.005Z

We had help from Mark, River, Emma, João, and António to plaster the living room with lime putty.

Plastering the bathroom

2009-12-03T22:12:00.000Z

We finished tiling the kitchen floor and today started to plaster the bathroom with lime putty.

Ladrilhos - Floor Tiles

2009-12-01T21:26:00.007Z

First time I have put floor tiles. We used quick lime mixed with water to make a lime putty mix applied on the floor and used it for grouting the tiles. (still no cement used on the house despite us being given a sack of tiling cement from the builders yard).

O novo chão - The new floor

2009-11-28T20:44:00.006Z

We treated the wood with linseed oil and turpentine.

Trátmos o soalho com oleo de linhaça e aguarrás.

Amário e Postos permanentes

2009-11-24T17:48:00.005Z

Já tenho outro ajudante o Dward de Estados Unidos! Fazémos os postos permanentes e um amário na cozinha.

Yesterday Dward arrived to the farm and today we have taken out the temporary posts and put in permanent trunks of euclyptus cut from the farm. And after that we were putting the doors on one of the kitchen cupboards.

As últimas janelas

2009-10-15T13:54:00.004+01:00

Obrigado o José para ajudar rebocar encima e fazer a últimas duas janelas.

Rebocar com massa de cal - Lime rendering

2009-10-05T19:49:00.001+01:00

O encontro foi ótimo e tenho que dizer muito obrigado a tod@s. Que equipa! Bom trabalho!

A sala

2009-09-13T12:39:00.005+01:00

Rearranged the living room.

treating wood - tratar madeira

2009-08-27T23:14:00.004+01:00

Pintamos as madeiras com duas camadas de borax e óleo de linhaça.
We treated the wood with two coats of borax and linseed oil.

1-Encontro

2009-08-06T12:06:00.003+01:00

Estacar - stacking

2009-07-13T18:09:00.003+01:00

After being inspired by Helders horta I have made some shelves on the patio to grow more food in the vertical layer.

New Strawbale building Site - Novo site de construir com fardos de palha

2009-06-09T22:20:00.002+01:00

New strawbale site where you can share photos, videos, links with others.

Novo site de fardos de palha, pode partilhar fotos, vidoes, links com outras pessoas.

Raising the roof....part 2 - Elevar o telhado... segunda parte

2009-05-21T13:42:00.004+01:00

So what happened to the plastering? Well you can´t plaster over the winter since frost interferes with the plaster drying. And this year haven´t had many volunteers at all, and I still had to raise the west corner. Why because the back wall compress 20cm and the front 15cm due to the 4 window/door frames in the front wall. With the help of Jodie and Ray and the 3 tonne jack and some new posts and braces the back wall is now timber frame. Need to infill now. If anyone want to give me a hand next week to do this please get in touch.

Bem, agora a esquina está nivelada com o resto da parade atrás. Era preciso elevar a esquina com uma mucaco e pussimos novos postos e travesses que faz um framo de madiera. Este náo era o design original mas foi preciso porque a parade atrás baixou 20cm e a parade en frente 15cm por causa dos framos de janelas e portas que estão enfrente do sul. Na proxima semana tenho que enchear com mais palha. Se quer ajudar contacta-me! Vamos lá.

Straw house beats the shakes in US earthquake test - New Scientist

2009-05-01T19:52:00.008+01:00

CHEAP houses built from straw bales could dramatically improve building safety in earthquake zones. That's the conclusion from tests in the US in which a simple straw bale house withstood shaking equivalent to a major earthquake.

Originally developed a century ago in Nebraska, homes with straw-bale walls are enjoying a revival in the US and Europe because they use green materials and provide excellent insulation. But the technology could also provide protection in quakes.

Civil engineer Darcey Donovan was designing straw-bale houses in Truckee, California, when she heard of the quake that had just killed more than 75,000 people in the Kashmir region of northern Pakistan in October 2005. Most died when their homes collapsed. She volunteered to help with the recovery, and in May 2006 spent a month in the devastated area building a women's community centre made of straw bales. She was struck by the number of people who were homeless or living in tents yet who were afraid to return to or rebuild traditional stone-and-mud homes. "I had helped build one building, but I needed to do more," she says.

Realising that straw-bale houses might help, Donovan came up with a design that could be built cheaply with local materials. The foundations are made with sacks of gravel, while the building's base uses clay and sand mixed with cement. Straw bales form the walls, which can then be covered with a plaster made from clay, sand and chopped straw. The roof is made of corrugated sheet metal. In western designs, the bales serve as insulation while a wooden frame supports the load, but Donovan was able to use the straw walls for structural support by keeping the houses to a single storey. Not only are the buildings sturdier than stone, they are much lighter, so a collapse is less likely to kill anyone inside.

Donovan has since founded the Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building organisation to promote the idea. PAKSBAB has already helped local workers build nine homes in Kashmir, all of which are now occupied.

To test how the houses would fare in an earthquake, Donovan built one on a quake simulation table at the University of Nevada in Reno. In tests late last month, it stood through a series of eight quakes of increasing intensity. The plaster cracked and flakes crumbled off in the final run, when the accelerations reached 0.82 times the force of gravity - stronger than the 7.6-magnitude Kashmir quake - but the house survived.

In the final test, which was stronger than the Kashmir quake, the plaster cracked but the house survived
"The structure did exceptionally well," says Ian Buckle, who runs the Reno test lab. Given refinements to speed up construction, he thinks the design has a great future in quake zones around the world.

--

Casas económicas, construídas com fardos de palha, podem melhorar incrivelmente a segurança das construções em zonas sísmicas. É esta a conclusão de testes feitos nos EUA, onde se submeteu uma construção em fardos de palha à simulação de um forte tremor de terra.

Descobertas e desenvolvidas há um século na região de Nebraska, as casas com fardos de palha estão agora a voltar aos EUA e à Europa pois utilizam materiais verdes e permitem um excelente isolamento térmico. A somar, permitem ainda protecção em caso de terramoto.

A engenheira civil Darcey Donovan estava a desenhar uma casa em fardos de palha em Truckee, Califórnia, quando ouviu a notícia de um sismo que matara mais de 75.000 pessoas, na região de Caxemira no norte do Paquistão, em Outubro de 2005. A maioria morreu quando as suas casas colapsaram. Sensibilizada por este trágico acontecimento Donovan decidiu ir como voluntária para ajudar na reconstrução e em 2006 passou um mês na área devastada, construindo um centro comunitário para mulheres em fardos de palha. Ela estava determinada a encontrar uma solução para o grande número de pessoas que estava a viver na rua ou em tendas ou, ainda, com medo de regressar às suas casas tradicionais em pedra e lama. “Ajudei a construir um edifício, mas preciso fazer mais”, disse.

Percebendo que as casas em fardos de palha podiam ajudar, desenvolveu um sistema construído com materiais locais baratos. As fundações são feitas com sacos de gravilha, enquanto a base do edifício usa argila e areia misturada com cimento. Os fardos de palha formam a parede, que depois é coberta com um reboco feito de argila, areia e palha cortada. O telhado é feito com chapa metálica. No design ocidental, os fardos servem como isolamento enquanto uma estrutura de madeira suporta a carga. Mas Donovan foi capaz de usar as paredes de palha de forma estrutural mantendo as construções com um só piso. Os edifícios resultaram resistentes como pedra mas muito mais leves, levando a que, em caso de colapso, seja improvável alguém morrer debaixo dos escombros.

Donovan, desde então, fundou a “Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building organisation” para promover a ideia. PAKSBAB já ajudou trabalhadores locais a construir nove casas em Caxemira, todas elas actualmente ocupadas.
Para testar como as casas se comportam em caso de terramoto Donovan construiu uma sobre a mesa de simulação de terramotos na Universidade de Nevada em Reno. Nos testes, a construção, foi sujeita a uma série de oito sismos de intensidade crescente. O reboco estalou e caiu na última sessão, quando a aceleração atingiu 0.82 vezes a força de gravidade – mais forte que os 7.6 de magnitude atingido pelo terramoto de Caxemira – mas a casa resistiu.
“A estrutura teve um comportamento excepcional” diz Ian Buckle, que dirige o laboratório de Reno. Ele acredita que, com algum desenvolvimento da técnica para acelerar o tempo de construção, estamos perante uma solução com grande futuro em áreas de risco sísmico.

A visit - Uma visita

2009-04-16T14:14:00.002+01:00

O encontro verede foi muito bom e depois tivémos uma visita de amigas a ver a casa. Gostam :-)

Em breve (duas semanas?) vamos a començar rebocar a casa. Se tem intressa ajudarme fico muito agradecido

The green gathering was fantastic and after we had a visit from some friends from the green gathering to see the house. They like it :-) Soon we are going to start plastering the walls (maybe two weeks) and anyone who wants to help will be much appreciated!

Blue Rock Station - Ohio, Casa de pneus e fardos de palha

2009-02-17T18:45:00.003Z

Blue Rock Station in Ohio - Casa de pneus e fardos de palha em Ohio

O Forno - The stove

2008-12-17T12:23:00.000Z

Algumas pessoas sabem que desde dezembro no ano passado no tinha o forno em uso porque o risco de fogo. Mas agora comprei os chaminés e o estou a cozinhar! Nunca mais gaz!

Some of you will know that I have not had the stove going because I didn´t want to risk a fire. Well after I went and saw Terramoja´s stove I decided to buy the chimney pieces and am now cooking on it! No more gas!!

Janelas e Portas - Windows and Doors

2008-12-10T20:02:00.000Z

A big thank you to Sibelius and Arabela who helped make the windows. We can now cut glass!

Agora está mais quentinha com janelas e porta!

Mais telhado - More roof

2008-11-13T14:40:00.000Z

Fazemos ouro telhado onde vai ser um lugar para lenha e e uma dispença...mais tarde.
We have made another roof round the back for wood storage and a celar which will come later.

Curso em Porto

2008-10-27T13:29:00.000Z

Oportunidades para aprender como construir com fardos de palha.

Music on the patio

2008-10-25T18:35:00.000+01:00

Janelas - Windows

2008-10-21T13:09:00.000+01:00

A primeira vez que faço janelas...correm bem.

First time I've made windows...they seem to be going well.

As janelas no telhado - Skylight Windows

2008-10-09T09:38:00.001+01:00

Ontem pusemos as janelas no telhado e agora a chuva no pode entrar!

We put the skylight windows in yesterday. The rain can't get in any more.

A Mapa

2008-08-17T21:36:00.000+01:00

Aqui está a mapa para chegar aõ Quinta. Também estamos no Google Earth, escrive Casal do Abade, e encontrarnos aí.

Here's the map of how to get here. Also on Google Earth type in Casal do Abade and you should see us.

Atla Tensãos

2008-08-12T12:27:00.000+01:00

Ha uma linha de alta tensãos que vai passar bastante perto a Quinta...uma aula do insatisfatório coisas da vida. A empresa que vai ser responsivel transterar (nas altas atensãos) nao tem falado com as pessoas destes planos que estão a fazer. Vai ser uma Festa da Atenção 16 Augusto no Quinta de Entre Aguas.

There are plans to put up 60KV Pillons to transfer electricity for industry that will pass quite close by. The company has not asked the permission of the local people and are bypassing the law! There's going to be a Pillon Party on 16 August at Quinta de Entre Aguas.

The hammock's up

2008-05-14T12:18:00.000+01:00

Great place to relax.

Um bom lugar para descansar.

The patio roof

2008-05-13T22:21:00.000+01:00

We have finished the patio roof! A big thank you to Igor, Titou, Anabelle, and Ricardo for helping put it up.

O telhado do patio está feito.

Tiled patio roof

2008-05-10T14:01:00.001+01:00

We finished putting the patio roof tiles up and are waiting for the rain to see if it is water tight...

Patio roof

2008-05-09T20:31:00.000+01:00

We have leveled the patio using hydraulic lime mix. Now there are hardly any stones to trip on! The last two days we have been doing the carpentry for the patio roof. We''l finish putting up the tiles tomorrow.

The patio nearly done

2008-04-23T22:31:00.000+01:00

We have just about finished the patio out the front and have made a nice planting area next to the house for herbs and salads. We've planted some fruit trees too; an orange, tangerine, kaki (diospeiro) and a nespereira (like a plumb).

Agua na casa

2008-04-16T20:54:00.000+01:00

Agora temos agua na pia de cozinha. Now we have water in the house via the kitchen sink! Que bom.

Making the lime render

2008-03-28T23:14:00.000Z

We have to make our own limw putty as you can't buy it here! So we have made half of the 3 cubic metres. We had half a bath tub ful with water and added quicklime, slaking all the time for 15mins. Then we mixed 3 parts sand 1 part lime paste in the mixer and now it is stored in the water tank for motnhs. It will be good after 3 months but the longer you leave it the better it is to work with.

Drilling!

2008-03-07T14:27:00.000Z

Hello,
We have been cutting down the pines behind the house and stripping them so we can use them to make the veranda. It is really hard black granite so even with the big drill it's hard going. We have also filled under the boxframes with stone and lime mortar.

Filling the gaps

2008-01-28T09:17:00.000Z

So after over a week the wall upstairs below the window has completely dried out and I rebuilt the walls using wedges of strawbales. I am also putting in new lintels as these take the loadf of the walls again and I am a lot happier with the results. I have replaced 2'4' with 4'4'. This will also make it easier to fit the windows as the pine post have warped quite considerably.

Downstairs the bale above the bathroom window was wet so I took that out and replaced it with dry straw.

All the tools have a home

2008-01-22T20:43:00.001Z

I'm going to store my tools under the stairs for now until I build the workshop round the back. It's great to have all the tools in one place and dry!

Inside

2008-01-21T00:20:00.001Z

I made a bookcase and have got the organ in the living room. I've also insulated the floors with lecca (small balls of clay blown with air).

Wet wall

2008-01-21T00:13:00.001Z

So i guess you want an update. Well when I got back the wind blew off the tarp covering the window space and the upper wall was pretty wet. It took a few days but I have taken out the section that is wet and now it is drying out. And of course we have the interior coming on too.

Stairs

2008-01-09T11:18:00.000Z

Well in the time that has gone by I made the stairs, put the kitchen sink in and made a bookcase which has all my books on it now. I also finished the gable walls.

The floor

2007-11-09T15:43:00.000Z

I've finished putting the upstairs floor in with pine tongue and groove. Still got to coat it with linseed oil and turps and then it will come out real nice.
I have put the chimney pieces in too. Still got a few tiles to do. And we covered the house with the tarps in case of rain. But it's been all sunshine.
Just a point of information Emily and I have separated so it's just me now...

Putting the tiles

2007-10-15T09:13:00.001+01:00

We had a great day yesterday. Se had a group of hard workers which made getting all the tiles up there that much esier. We had a little hold up with the tiles that go next to the window flashing. But on the side without windows we managed to get that side finished before it got completely dark. S big thank you to Steve, Toivo, Tom, Carolina, Yassine, Filipa, Ze and Emily.

Finishing the roof timbers

2007-10-12T14:23:00.000+01:00

Yassine and I put all the A ieces in to finish the woodwork on the house. We also put the final piece of roofing felt over the ridgpole and the rest of the ripas.

Roofing felt and ripas

2007-10-08T20:12:00.000+01:00

We have been putting down the roofing felt and ripas that the tiles sit on. I have cut the long end off the ridgepole as you can see. A section of the back wall got wet after a day of rain. We took the wet strip out and have to rebuild that section in the photos.

All the rafters are up

2007-09-29T10:27:00.001+01:00

We just finished putting up the last rafter before it got completely dark last night. What an accomplishment. First roof I've ever done! We haveClinton from the states who has plenty of building experience which was a great help.

Progress with the roof

2007-09-26T14:27:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since we updated the blog. We have had some rain so we had to cover the house for a few days so that meant I could go to lisbon for three days of teaching of the dharma with his holiness the Dalai Lama. When i got back we had the new straight ridgpoles and we put them up and fixed them to the roof plate we put on that the rafters are fixed to. We have put up the ridgpole and have put up fifteen rafters so far. Now we have put a few up it's going a lot quicker.

Three bales high up top

2007-09-05T10:23:00.000+01:00

We've just finished the three layers now.

The second floor walls and lots of cuts

2007-09-04T14:13:00.000+01:00

The last week we have been cuttting the rafters and other and the rest of the wood necessary for the roof as the bales had still not been delivered due to the holidays. We were surprised yesterday when we got a phone call at eight in the morning saying the bales were on there way. So yesterday and today we started building the three bales high second floor walls. This is what it looks like.

It's not all work (a few days ago)

2007-08-23T21:22:00.000+01:00

After working we relax with some music and singing

The pool

2007-08-23T21:17:00.000+01:00

We built this a couple of months ago thanks to Dick's great building skills and forgot we hadn't taken any pictures of it. Well here it is. It is the water tank fo the farm and is a great pool to have a dip in too on these hot summer days.

Building the roof plate

2007-08-23T20:58:00.000+01:00

We are well underway with the boxframes for the roof plate. We have put most of the noggins in. We are using screws and washers to pull on the slighty warped wood. The new mitre saw is great for accurate and quick cutting of the wood. When you think we need forty noggins that saves quite a lot of time. Still waiting for the bales, we can cut the rafters while we ae waitng once we finsh the boxframes.

The wood arrives!

2007-08-21T14:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterday a very cross Orlando came and delivered the wood for the boxframes and the roof. Today we are cutting the wood for the boxframes and putting some of them together. We are still waiting for the bales to come to do the second floor. Portuguese holidays are pretty impenitrable! No matter thanks to Orlando's kindness we can continue with the build. So continue to watch the progress!

The joists are up!

2007-08-10T19:47:00.000+01:00

Sorry everyone for not posting what we've been doing on the house. Well we have joined the boxframes, levelled them and filled them with Lecca (for insulation). We have driven bamboo stakes through holes in the boxframe and through the top four bales in the walls. So now we have put up two middle beams and we put up the joists this morning! We coated them with two coats of Borax to protect the wood from insects. So this is what it is looking like now. Mais o menos.

The box frames are up!

2007-07-28T10:56:00.001+01:00

And they all fit! A little work needs to be done here and there to even the up before we put braces on the corners and fit strapping at 50cm intervals to hold the walls together. Already the walls feel more secure.

The box frames go up: part one

2007-07-28T09:09:00.000+01:00

We managed to recruit Steve, Norman, and accidentally Joaquim, who just popped by to deliver our new wind up radio and found himself directing action as the box frames went up

Level walls!

2007-07-28T09:04:00.000+01:00

We managed to level the walls by taking off the bales of the seventh layer, putting wedges in underneath and then staking them.

Day 14: Unlevel walls

2007-07-25T12:27:00.000+01:00

We tried to put the box frames on the walls only to find the south facing wall was not level. So we took them off and will attempt to level them. The reason for this is because bales in Portugal are not as standard as ones from UK or Spain.

Have a look soon to see how we resolved this!

The Seventh Layer

2007-07-22T14:05:00.000+01:00

The seventh layer has been going up the last three days and is quite tiring as we have to lift heavy bales onto the walls being careful not to move them. Today we finished that but not before we noticed some "bale frenzy" (where you get carried away and the wall creeps out). So we took down three layers and pulled six stakes out and rearranged them so now the wall is straight.

You might have noticed that we have used some customsized bales in our walls. This is neccessary just like it is with a brick house. We have a tool called a baling needle that you thread with baling twine and poke it through the bale. You need to measure where the needle goes in and where it comes out so you can have a bale say 60cm long. You would measure from the top of the bale both sides and keep trying until you get ot right. Hope fully the pictures will help explain.

Another essential job is to make wure the face of the bale is flat other wise you will have big gaps between your bales. We do this procedure on wvery bale so the bales match up very nicely.

Day 9: Seventh layer of bales

2007-07-20T11:09:00.000+01:00

Some flowers, fruits and vegetables

Our first job this morning was to saw and fit plywood to the door and window frames to support the seventh layer of bales:

And then we started to put the seventh layer of bales up.

Day 8: Last corner

2007-07-19T13:01:00.000+01:00

Thanks to one of us getting up early and getting on with things

While the other had a slower start

we managed to complete the last corner

At this point we have run out of bales and tarp, so a lunch at o cantinho is in order before we go and collect some more and think of ways to keep the rain at bay.

Day 7 I think: the last corner

2007-07-18T11:43:00.001+01:00

Thanks to some fantastic help over the weekend and good company when it rained, we were ready to continue this morning with the last corner. We got three rounds of bales to go, but are just about to run out of Adelino's stock. . . we're going to measure some up this afternoon so we shouldn't be delayed too much.

The rain stops

2007-07-17T10:38:00.001+01:00

The rain gave us a chance to do non bale related things like sleep and research roof building, suppliers of lime putty, and alpacas. After three days, this unseasonable downpour seems to be over and we can get back to work. It was a bit of a slow start this morning, and the camera has run out of batteries so photos will depend on whether we get enough sun to use the solar charger.

Day 5: Rain

2007-07-15T19:01:00.001+01:00

The flooring arrived, along with two strong men to move it, just in time before the rain started.
Some photos:

Day 4 back wall

2007-07-15T18:57:00.001+01:00

Finally, the various friends arrive. Much progress is made, with relatively few straw splinter incidents. Unfortunately we were too tired to take and photos of the now complete back wall before we put tarps on it, but were very satisfied with progress.

Day 3

2007-07-13T11:55:00.000+01:00

Still waiting for a very strong man or two to come and help us shift the mdf flooring, we started on the north west corner. Putting up the corner braces took some time, but it'll make keeping the walls straight easier this afternoon

Day 2: South wall

2007-07-13T11:50:00.000+01:00

The south wall

And an unhappy bunny with straw in her pants

Day 2: Mid morning

2007-07-12T10:00:00.001+01:00

A good start on the south wall. We collected another round of strawbales, helped by Adelino's two sons, which was great because we had to completely dismantle the shack that the bales were in, involving tossing tyres and tin sheets around. Still we got the bales. . .

Day 1: photos

2007-07-12T09:51:00.001+01:00

Chris staking the bales

We had a couple of helpers, Fa-fa the cat and Joaquim who has made a sudden conversion to strawbales, though he still thinks the house would be better with cement blocks

Day 1:Evening

2007-07-11T23:24:00.001+01:00

We have a corner! And another van full of bales. Pictures follow tomorrow. . .

Day 1: the tricky corner

2007-07-11T12:47:00.000+01:00

We learnt a lot from last year's build, not least of which the fact that the base box frames and foundations were not actually level. We rebuilt the south west corner about six times, ensuring it was straight by eye, spirit level and plumb bob. Somehow the walls always tended outwards. We only discovered the real cause about two months ago, thanks to Yassine's eagle-eyed observation that the box frame seemed to tilt. A car jack and plyboard later, the house was finally level and we decided to tackle this particular corner first off. So far, it's going ok. .

Day 0: Bales em Baixo

2007-07-10T22:53:00.000+01:00

After a day spent hauling wood burning ovens around, it was time to collect the bales. We had located Adelino in Barril after an exhaustive manhunt, taking in the house em cima, the farm em baixo and the other farm em baixo, which turned out to be the first farm, only accessed by a different route. Now it was time to collect the bales which were also, funnily enough, em baixo. Our challenge was to avoid taking the special bales destined for Adelino's flock and we uncovered our bales beneath an impressive fortress of tin sheets and tyres. Beautiful, well-compacted bales, of which there will no doubt be countless photos in the coming days. We placed 18 of them in the van, before the tin sheet structure threatened to give way completely. A smooth ride through the woods home and we can wake up tomorrow to a vanful of bales and a summer of bale building fun.