“In this video we tour a traditional Icelandic turf house at the Islenski Baerinn Turf House museum. Turf houses are the original green buildings because they were built using local and natural materials. In Southern Iceland they used turf from the local wetlands and lava stones to build thick walls that would insulate the houses against wind and cold weather. They imported small amounts of wood, or used driftwood.
Most turf houses in Iceland were torn down after World War II when people were encouraged to modernize their homes which means there are almost no turf houses left. So we felt really lucky to visit the Islenski Baerinn Turf House museum in Southern Iceland and meet with Hannes who runs the museum and whose grandparents and great grandparents used to live on, and run, the farm.”
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Those turf roofs must be impressive in their performance. Iceland faces many storms and depressions over the course of a year, thanks to those weather systems crossing from Africa to the Gulf of Mexico area, and then making their way up the north Atlantic. We in the UK keep an eye on them too, but they normally go north of us, unfortunately catching Iceland. The fact that turf roofs and walls in the Icelandic tradition deal with them, shows just how good that they are. Don’t be put off going there for a discovery trip, though – a friend took her main holiday there this year, and says that there is so much to discover that she is going back next year ! Regarding the expert’s description of the lack of timber initially to build structures, that explains why references tell us that timber was imported from Scandinavian countries in olden times. A great video – thank you !
Yes, these sod houses must have been extremely practical. They worked with no wood stoves!
I grew up in Nebraska where the pioneers built sod houses.