Our own home filmed by Better Homes and Gardens in Ganmain this is where we live and we love our straw bale home.

Thank you Better Homes and Gardens and especially Johanna Griggs, ENJOY!

One of our flag ship builds the Lethbridge Winery and Residence both built using jumbo straw bales:

Another building that we are very proud of near Ballarat in Victoria a jumbo bale in-fill steel frame buildings with three pavilions:

Main Pavilion Jumbo Bales

HAPPY BALING AND LET US HOPE THAT THERE WILL BE MANY NEW STRAW BALE HOMES BUILT DURING 2012.

If you  are interested in Huff ‘n’ Puff Constructions conducting a straw bale building workshop on your own home here is what you can expect to happen:

DAY ONE OF THE WORKSHOP NOTE THE EXCELLENT PREPARATION

DAY FIVE OF THE WORKSHOP AND THE TRUSSES ARE GOING UP!

WHY STRAW BALE?  ONE ANSWER: SUPER INSULATION = LOW POWER BILLS:

Surge in price of electricity:

A new electricity cost analysis by the International Energy Agency reveals that the average price rose 3.3 per cent in real terms across industrialised countries last year — 6.2 per cent for industry and 1.7 per cent for households.  See:   http://www.solarchoice.net.au

But electricity bills for Australian households rose 13.6 per cent in the same period, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

Our own straw bale home in hot summers and cool winters does not have an air conditioner and only one small natural gas heater.  Let us show you how you can pay for your straw bale home over 30 years by reducing your heating and cooling bills.  Call us or email us any time:

OFFICE 02 69276027

MOBILE 0412 11 61 57

Email: jacksflat@gmail.com

If you are unable to call us then please include your phone number in your email and we will call you back as soon as is practical.

We have embraced new technology so emails will be easier and quicker to reply to send them in!!

To all our valued clients we have solved the booking form problems.  However we were unable to save any of the many forms sent in during this outage, so if you have not heard back form us re your enquiry please re-submit the form.   Thanks.

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IN THE MEAN TIME 2012 is here!

Our next two straw bale building workshops:

# 132 GANMAIN NEW SOUTH WALES

EASTER Weekend April 6-10 2012

FOR DETAILS GO TO: UPCOMING WORKSHOPS.

FOR BOOKINGS GO HERE: Workshop Enrolment

To all our valued clients we have solved the booking form problems.  However we were unable to save any of the many forms sent in during this outage, so if you have not heard back form us re your enquiry please re-submit the form.   Thanks.

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NEW WORKSHOP SET AND CONFIRMED FOR VICTORIA

#133 WANGARATTA VICTORIA

ANZAC week  Saturday 21st April 2012-Wednesday April 25th ANZAC DAY 2012

FOR DETAILS GO TO: UPCOMING WORKSHOPS.

FOR BOOKINGS GO HERE: Workshop Enrolment

Pavilion Buildings for the ANZAC Week Workshop

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Our last straw bale building workshop:

# 131 BRAIDWOOD NEW SOUTH WALES

Australia Day Thursday 26th January –  Monday 30th January 2012.

What an adenture!  I am so very thrilled with the outcome of the workshop.  My little dream home is well on the way to becoming a reality.  John and Susan truly passionate, highly experienced and a lot of fun.  Thank you and of course a huge thank you to the “mighty Quinn”.

Alice (our patient client).

Follow our progress in the daily posts over this workshop below.

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PLEASE CALL US IF YOU NEED ANY FURTHER INFORMATION 02 69276027

Latest Update here: Workshops Comments from Participants

NULAWALA COMMUNITY HALL VIDEO:

Award winning straw bale community centre in the heart of Sydney built for the Fairfield City Council.

Designed by Envirotecture, straw bale by Huff ‘n’ Puff Constructions.

Designed by Make Architects the new Gateway Building has been constructed with 1,954 straw bale panels from straw harvested on the University’s very own farmland – just 200 yards from the site. Make Architects have produced the video Story of Straw about the technology behind the £5.2m development.

David, Abie and Don applying render mesh

Last day of workshop # 131.  We managed to apply 2 coats of lime render to the external straw bale walls and one coat to the internal walls.  We still have the south wall to mesh and apply the filling coat which we will do in the morning.  All in all we met our goals and then some.  We had a great team and our client is very happy with the result of this custom workshop.

Susan brush cutter extroadinaire

Nearly there the pump arrived late afternoon they had car problems, just as well, as we were not quite ready for them andit gave us some breathing space to prepare for the first coat of render.  We started the first coat at 6pm and all is going well.

The top plates are level and the building is square.  The walls are straight and true and the internal brush cutting is now under way.

We are using rice straw which is a lot harder to trim into shape however Susan and Bill are doing a great job.

Children are always welcome at our workshops

A warm sunny day and for a change no mizzle!.  We made and attached all the top plates, brush cut the external walls and prepared the window bales.  The pre-compression of the 16mm booker all thread rods started using the air tool and we achieved a 40mm compression on our first round.  Tomorrow we will compress the walls a further 30mm and then start lime render.

All in all an excellent day.

End of day 2

Another very busy day making top plates and raising bales.  We also had our slide show this evening so a long day as well.

Here are a few photos of the day’s progress.

The South wall

We have had a very busy day with a great team of builders.  There are people from Melbourne, South Africa, Scotland, Sydney and locals from Braidwood and area.  This area of Australia is fast becoming a hub of straw bale buildings.  We ended up with all the window and door frames made and 4 courses of bales put up in place.  Tired but happy at the result today.   The weather is excellent cool and dry with some mizzle in the late afternoon.

Our office!

We had a great day and everyone put in a big effort to be ready for the start of tomorrow’s workshop.  We have a good team arriving tomorrow morning and all is ready for Australia Day.  There will be plenty of time to build this cottage with a lot of theory and some good times ahead.  Here are 6 more photos showing the progress we made today:

Bottom plates going down

Great to be back at work again in 2012.  We are preparing for the start of tomorrow’s workshop Australia Day 2012.

The building is a hybrid load bearing cottage for our clients.  The size 11 metres by 8 metres with a loft and a verandah all round.

The foundations have been built and the building is built on a cement block stem wall with engaged piers bearers and joists for the timber flooring.  Here are a few photos of the building which is situated near the small village of Mongarlowe which is 20 kilometres away from the historic township of  Braidwood.

I will post photos every day now for the next 5 days of our progress:

The interview took place at the 2007 Colorado Straw Bale Conference. It’s great to hear both Matts and Judy talk about their beginnings in the early days of the strawbale revival, and to again hear Judy’s voice, intelligence, and spirit. Thanks Martin for the link.