House made of straw and clay. Building a house from straw Houses from clay and stone

Is a mud house a good idea? They are constantly viewed more as a curiosity, however, houses are built from this material that are not inferior to houses built using other available technologies. Are you at the stage of choosing a house project? Maybe a house made from clay with your own hands will be ideal for your family.

Today's clay houses are able to fully satisfy the needs of individual developers, allowing them to use their new home comfortably and conveniently. They are built en masse in countries with a high environmental culture. Well known in the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany or Sweden. Russia, unfortunately, is not very open to novelty, but we are beginning to approach such houses with an increasing degree of trust.

A house made of clay, wood and straw, but not a mud hut

Modern technology for making a house from clay makes it possible to build a building that in no case will resemble ancient mud huts in its appearance. In addition, in ecological houses made of clay there are no problems with interior and exterior finishing, which are used in traditional construction technologies. Clay accumulates heat well, and, in addition, quickly absorbs and releases moisture. For this reason, in houses where this particular material is used, air humidity that is friendly to the human body always reigns. In addition, houses of this type become a real refuge for allergy sufferers, since the clay also prevents electrostatic charge, thereby limiting the formation of dust in the room. It also preserves wood, making it resistant to biological corrosion.

The walls of an eco-house made of pressed straw and clay, 50-60 cm thick, are warm and energy efficient. Such insulation in the autumn-winter period consumes only 15-30 kW/h per m² of surface (standard 90 kW/h). If there is heating with electric radiators, heating bills will be reduced by 3 times compared to traditional houses.

Construction technologies

Current regulations allow the use of two technologies during the construction of houses made of clay. The first of these involves the use of a structural frame made of steel, wood or precast concrete elements. Such a frame is filled with so-called light clay. The concept of light clay should be understood as a mixture of fatty clay with a large amount of fillers. The filler can be, for example, straw, sawdust, reeds. However, despite the fact that straw has a good degree of thermal insulation, it is not a durable material. In order to increase the strength of the walls of the house, you can use other available construction technologies. Fillers are used for reinforcement, they prevent the appearance of cracks in the walls. The material used as an admixture to the clay should have as much strength as possible and minimize wall shrinkage. Thus, you can build walls by tamping clay into formwork with your own hands, but ready-made ones are also available in the market clay blocks. Walls made from such blocks are insulated from the façade with mineral wool or insulated light clay. In the case of building houses with an attic, it is better to use cellulose wool (ecowool) to insulate the roof. This is a fully effective material for eco-construction.

Advantages

Environmentalists, as well as those looking for solutions with low economic costs, can appreciate the positive aspects of houses made of clay. In fact, it is impossible to disagree with them. The material is environmentally friendly. In addition, environmental and other materials used in this construction technology, that is, straw, stones, wood. These materials are easily available and do not require additional processing, which does not lead to an increase in emissions of carbon dioxide and other substances harmful to the environment. In addition, a house built from clay is almost completely biodegradable after completion of its operation. The materials used during construction are much cheaper than, for example, traditional ceramics or concrete. It is assumed that already at the construction stage, it is possible to save about 40% of the costs that would have to be incurred when building a house in the traditional way. Additional savings appear during the operation of an ecological house.

Clay houses are highly energy efficient, and sometimes even achieve parameters close to those that characterize passive houses. This requires a suitable design, the construction technology indicated above and error-free execution. In addition to the advantages listed above, such houses also have a number of advantages:

Benefit for health,
wide possibilities for organizing space inside the house,
unique aesthetics of the building from the outside,
good room acoustics.

A healthy microclimate reigns in houses made of clay. The relative humidity of the room is 50-60%, which is very beneficial for the people living in them. Dust does not stick to clay plasters and mold or mildew develops on it. Thanks to thick walls, the room is not too cold in winter or too hot in summer. It is comfortable to live in such conditions, and they are favorable for maintaining good health and well-being every day. In addition, clay is also fire-resistant, preserves wood, and its use for plaster allows you to obtain excellent acoustics in the room.

Flaws

None of the available construction technologies is perfect. No matter why we build our houses, they are always in some sense inferior. The technology of clay construction is due to the fact that in order for the walls to have sufficient load-bearing capacity, stability and strength, they must also have the appropriate thickness. Therefore, clay walls, as a rule, should have a thickness of 50-60 cm. Thanks to this thickness, the walls have good thermal and acoustic insulation, but also help reduce the usable area of the house. The problem may arise when we do not have too spacious a plot.

Where you live. And it’s not just about what household chemicals you use, what products you buy, or whether you sort your garbage. And actually about the construction of your house. If you are the happy owner of a plot of land and a small start-up capital, you can build truly ecological housing, using ancient and traditional technologies for Ukraine, which will be in no way inferior to modern projects. We are talking about an adobe house.

First of all, let's explain what adobe is - it is a building wall material in the form of unfired bricks made from a mixture of clay, sand and straw (sometimes other ingredients). If we talk about construction characteristics, the compression limit of adobe brick (in dried form) ranges from 10 to 50 kgf/cm2 and is close in strength to aerated and foam concrete grade 600 (tensile strength 25-40 kgf/cm2).

Although this technology is considered more characteristic of the countries of Asia, South America and the Caucasus, it is also quite common in Central, Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Ukrainian traditional mud huts were built from adobe. Houses and auxiliary structures are still being built from adobe. Some of them have been preserved in excellent condition not only in museums, but are also still used in villages. And the grandchildren of those who built them live in them.

The advantages of building with adobe include:

The cost is significantly lower than buildings made of ordinary brick. You can easily make adobe bricks with your own hands.
In terms of durability and strength, adobe structures are equal to traditional buildings.
Adobe has low thermal conductivity, so it is easier to maintain a comfortable temperature in the house both in summer and winter.
Due to its porosity, adobe provides a normal level of humidity.
Saman is a fire-resistant material. Even after a fire, the walls, as a rule, remain almost undamaged.

The disadvantages include the fact that adobe absorbs moisture very well, so during construction, great attention must be paid to waterproofing both the foundation and walls.

Another benefit of building this way is that you are less constrained by shape than with traditional construction. Your house can have both classic outlines and unusual shapes - round walls, a domed roof, a recess into a hill - with clay you can practically limit your imagination.

It is clear that it is impossible to outline all the nuances of building a house from adobe in this article. In the end, when building any house, you will still need expert advice, so we will focus on how to make adobe bricks with your own hands and note only some of the main stages of this type of “green” construction.

In order to make a brick from adobe, first of all, we need clay (oily or medium fat content), sand (coarse-grained, not sea), water, plant residues (the most common option is chopped straw 6-10 cm long) . You can also add expanded clay, cement and sawdust to the clay. If desired, you can add various aseptic additives to the mixture. For fire safety you can add flame retardant additives.

If you use clay that is too oily for the production of adobe blocks, they will crack, and if it is not oily enough, the mixture will not adhere well, crumble, and the strength of the block will suffer. To determine the fat content of clay, it is worth consulting with specialists. But there are also folk methods for determining it. Here are examples of the two simplest ones:

How to test clay for fat content

Method 1

From the selected clay we form a ball the size of a chicken egg. We place it between two planed boards (plywood) and squeeze the ball, pressing it with the top board:

a ball of low-fat clay will immediately fall apart;

a ball of medium-fat clay will fall apart when the distance between the boards is reduced by about a third;

a ball of oily clay cracks when the distance between the boards reaches halfway.

Method 2

Dilute a small amount of clay with water to the consistency of sour cream. Take a dry and smooth wooden stick. Stir the clay solution with a stick. Based on the amount of clay that sticks to the stick, its fat content is determined:

Oily clay - 3 mm or more;

Average clay - 1-3 mm;

Let's get to work. We dig out the pit and cover its bottom with film. We lay a layer of clay 10-30 cm thick on this bedding, fill it with water and leave it overnight. The next day, add sand, knead, and then add pre-moistened filler. Leave the mixture for 2 days, add more liquid if necessary. You can mix the ingredients with a shovel or stick, and knead comfortably with your feet.

We make a mold and make a brick. The mold can hold any number of brick slots at once, but keep in mind that you will need to lift it and turn it over along with the folded brick. Therefore, usually for one person they make a form with 2 cells, for two - with 4-6.

Pre-moisten the mold with water and sprinkle with chopped straw or sawdust. Bricks can be made in almost any desired size and shape, but a typical parallelepiped shape is the size shown below. The mold for making bricks must allow for drying shrinkage of approximately 8%.

Brick dimensions, cm Mold dimensions taking into account shrinkage

40x19x13 43x20, 5x14

36x17x13 39x18, 5x14

30x14x10 32.5 x15x11

The bricks are dried in the open air for 2-3 days, then the brick is placed on the edge and dried for about another week. Then the adobe blocks are stored, for example, in a barn (it is important to protect them from moisture) and kept for about another week or until construction begins.

Work should begin in the spring, then you have a chance to not only make a brick, but also build a house during the season. In 1 day of work, 3-4 people will be able to make 150-200 bricks.

How to check the quality of adobe bricks

If the adobe brick was made correctly, then:

a nail that is driven tightly into the brick, but holds tightly;
brick does not soak in water for 1-2 days;
the brick remains intact when dropped from a height of up to 2 meters.

Now that you have the required number of bricks for your house, you can begin its construction. As we noted, a house made of adobe can be built according to a variety of projects, and therefore we will not dwell in detail on the construction process itself, we will only note some of the nuances of constructing structures from adobe brick:

The foundation of an adobe building must be very well waterproofed.

It is worth placing canopies over the windows to prevent rainwater from flowing in. Window sills are also waterproofed and protected by tides. The entrance thresholds of the house are also carefully waterproofed.

The corners and joints of the walls are reinforced with reinforcing mesh.

Beams and floors are arranged with load redistribution over the entire wall to avoid point loads.

External walls can be plastered and whitewashed (traditional option) or lined with red or sand-lime brick, ceramic or cement tiles. Taxation should begin after the house shrinks. Preferably six months to a year after the construction of the house.

A house made of clay, wood and straw, but not a mud hut

The walls of an eco-house made of pressed straw and clay, 50-60 cm thick, are warm and energy efficient. Such insulation in the autumn-winter period consumes only 15-30 kW/h per m² of surface (standard 90 kW/h). If there is heating with electric radiators, heating bills will be reduced by 3 times compared to traditional houses.

Construction technologies

Advantages

Benefit for health,
wide possibilities for organizing space inside the house,
unique aesthetics of the building from the outside,
good room acoustics.

Flaws

Today, the materials used in the construction of houses are extremely diverse. Housing is built from aerated concrete and, or logs, brick or stone. Along with these popular materials, straw has recently become increasingly preferred, making it possible to build a warm and reliable structure on a very modest budget. If all building technologies are strictly followed, a house made of straw can be much warmer, cheaper, stronger and more reliable than its stone and brick “brothers”.

Project of a modern eco-friendly straw house

The first thatched houses began to be built in America in the middle of the 19th century. Very often, the wood that was used in the construction of structures was not enough, but there was an abundance of straw in the fields. The first officially registered house made of straw is considered to be a school building in Nebraska at the end of the 19th century, the walls of which were completely eaten by cows a few years later. This is probably why compressed straw blocks began to be supplemented with a strong frame made of logs in the very near future.

A little later, the construction of houses made of straw for a wide variety of purposes began in full swing, the area of which reached 70 square meters. m. These were schools, shops, residential buildings, cowsheds, vegetable stores and even small luxury estates.

However, already in the middle of the twentieth century, straw house construction, as a result of the advent of more modern construction technologies, began to gradually lose its position. Despite this, the idea of building inexpensive and yet reliable structures did not leave people's minds. At the end of the last millennium, these ideas grew into a whole movement.

The interest of architects was of greatest importance for the popularization of straw houses, thanks to which buildings with the most unusual architectural and planning solutions began to be erected in America. The resurgence of straw bale construction was supported by television and print media, including the New York Times and National Geographic magazine.

Gradually, houses began to be built in a variety of climatic zones and countries: Australia, Chile, Canada, Mexico, France and, naturally, in the USA. In Russia, the very first straw bale house was built in the village of Mayak (near Chelyabinsk) in 1994. Houses made of straw bales with various fillers (clay, sand, slurry) were known in Rus' as adobe houses. In warm regions, such construction is still popular to this day.

How to build a straw house with your own hands

Blocks of pressed straw measuring 35*45*90 cm are used as a building material. They are tied with nylon cord or wire. When making blocks, flax, rye or wheat straw is used; in addition, you can use hay. It is worth noting separately that the straw in blocks is usually pressed so tightly that it is impossible to burn through the bale even with a blowtorch. Thanks to this, straw houses are not exposed to moisture. Raindrops can penetrate the treated walls and roof no deeper than 5 cm.

Blocks for construction are usually made in a rectangular shape. Their size depends on the length of the stem: the longer it is, the larger the block and, accordingly, the more reliable. During construction, you can use not only dry straw blocks, but also those soaked in clay mortar. Before starting installation work, the compressed bale is dipped in a clay solution, and then thoroughly dried for a certain time. Thanks to these actions, it is possible to achieve precise wall geometry, as well as high fire safety and strength.

Read also

Projects of houses with a winter garden

But here it is worth noting a number of some disadvantages: such walls retain heat less well, take too long to dry, and can become moldy. This technology is called “light adobe”, since the amount of clay in such a compressed block does not exceed 10% of the total weight.

Once the foundation is prepared and the necessary supply of straw bales is available, the installation of doorways and walls can begin. The standard height of a straw bale wall is, on average, 5-6 rows. Building houses from such blocks does not present any difficulties, since only a crane is required to lay them. Straw is a very convenient material that allows you to erect buildings of almost any architectural complexity.

Laying straw bales

Straw blocks can be used as load-bearing walls, but to more reliably strengthen the structure, strong frames should be used. The frameless option involves laying load-bearing walls directly from the straw blocks themselves, fastened to each other using a special mortar or vertical stakes. If desired, instead of wooden stakes, you can use plastic or metal rods, the lower end of which is attached to the foundation, and a tie nut is attached to the upper end.

Scheme for constructing a straw wall

The main advantages of this type of construction are the ease of construction and low cost of the house. Keep in mind that when installing a heavy and architecturally complex roof, the construction of frames will be a prerequisite, even despite the high density of the blocks.

Frame houses made of straw involve building, first of all, a wooden supporting frame, between the beams of which straw blocks are carefully laid. The structure of the frame is exactly the same as in the construction of simple frame houses. The blocks should either be tightly packed into the frame, or additionally reinforced with a special solution, rods or stakes. If desired, you can build a double frame, which will make the load-bearing capacity even higher. Double frames can support even the heaviest metal or wood roofs.

Drawing of a frame house made of straw blocks

After the window openings and walls are completely prepared, you can begin tightening the house along the frame with plastic tapes. Due to this, the straw will shrink, which will make the plastering process more convenient. If all these conditions are carefully met, the house will not settle for several years. Keep in mind that straw blocks must be laid at a slight elevation above the floor, which will protect them from moisture. When creating unusual architectural designs, straw blocks must be carefully trimmed with a chainsaw.

Before finishing the internal and external walls, the gaps between the blocks are eliminated using small bundles of straw, which are first dipped in liquid clay. A polymer or metal mesh is attached on top of the stacked straw blocks, followed by a layer of plaster about 75 mm thick.

Plaster is a reliable protection against the effects of rodents, fire, moisture and other troubles. On top of it you can apply any decorative finishing you like, for example, covering the walls with plasterboard.

When building a country house, you want to get the maximum sensations from living outside the city. The aroma of a summer morning, the lightness of a homely atmosphere. This is how interest in building a house from straw often arises.

The attractiveness of such houses lies in the environmental friendliness and naturalness of the materials themselves. But that's not all. The ability to build a house with your own hands from straw and even finish it with clay plaster makes such materials increasingly popular for country construction. The appeal is that you can contribute to building your own home with your family. And upon completion, say: “I built this house with my own hands,” receiving incredible satisfaction.

The main advantages of straw as a building material and clay plaster as a finish are:

cheapness
local origin - easy to obtain
low environmental impact
contributes to the formation of a healthy room atmosphere, unlike many other materials

Important! Check the origin of the straw. Remember that anything that has been treated with the straw can end up in your lungs. The fields from which it was collected should not be treated with pesticides.

Straw that is suitable for construction can be collected from a range of crops, making it available in many geographical locations. Different types of straw have different properties. For example, rice straw is said to be more durable than wheat straw because it has a higher silica content.

The tightness of the wall structure is of paramount importance. Gaps in the building envelope can allow warm, moist air to enter the walls, which can cause rot. But it’s not just straw houses that are susceptible to this – condensation and mold are a common problem in many standard houses.

Depending on the design features of the house, the bales themselves can be used as a supporting structure for the walls. Either a timber or steel frame is used and straw fills the walls. The thickness of the wall is usually determined by the format of the blocks that are formed on the baler machine used to collect straw from the fields. Most often, rectangular bales (circular ones will not be suitable for standard construction purposes) are about 45 centimeters thick. Thus, the width of the straw walls will be quite acceptable for building a highly energy efficient house.

While straw is a relatively good insulating material, it must be taken into account that the heat-saving properties of this technology are sometimes overestimated. First of all, efficiency depends on the quality of the individual bale. Each of them must be checked for integrity, and must be well dried.

In addition, do not forget about fire safety. Particular attention must be paid to storage and access during the construction phase.

After the walls are covered with finishing on the outside and inside (plasterboard with a fire-retardant layer or clay plaster), the danger is reduced and will be comparable to the fire safety level of any wooden house.

The type of finishing you choose for the walls of your home is of great aesthetic and practical importance. Many people prefer to use clay plaster for interiors, which retains the organic and tactile properties of straw.

One of the aesthetic advantages of straw walls with clay plaster is their sculptural component.

You can be creative with the shapes of the contours and openings

... and niches in the walls of your house.

With clay plaster, you can round off the edges and create a very soft look while maintaining simple, clean, modern lines.

Once construction is complete, it can be difficult to tell that the house was built from straw, so many people leave a small window in one of the walls.

It's a good way to remind yourself of the work you've put into your home and, of course, it's a conversation piece to have with your guests.

Most people who embark on this construction adventure agree that it is fun and incredibly rewarding. It's a passion that the whole family can share, which truly makes building a home a dream come true.