“I built my passive solar straw bale house with earthen plasters in 2000 for $50K (will most likely cost more today, depending on many factors). This is an overview of the house; it is extremely energy-efficient. My electric bills are about $40 per month.
DIY
Free Open Source Strawbale House Design
Here’s another great project from Open Source Ecology.
“This simple home design grew out of a desire to share a easy-to-construct straw bale prototype for humanitarian applications. The barrier-free floor plan, comprised of a concentrated wet core within an insulating straw bale envelope, allows for an efficient layout within a small footprint. This system can scale up or down, orient to solar and wind patterns for passive heating and cooling, and be partitioned flexibly in order to adapt to changing inhabitant needs.
Liberator CEB Machine
Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters building the Global Village Construction Set — a modular, DIY, low-cost, open source, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.
The Liberator CEB Press Prototype IV
The CEB Story 2012. from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.
Quote from the video: “After this December, there’s going to be major adoption happening as people see this machine works and the quality of the housing that’s built, both in terms of time and cost, is going to be superior.” Marcin Jakubowski, Founder Open Source Ecology
“We’re pleased to announce design completion of Prototype IV of the Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) Press.
More Info on Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs)
We continue to get quite a few inquires about compressed earth blocks / soil-cement blocks. This Mother Earth News article got me excited about pressed earth blocks years ago. It’s an oldie but goodie first-person account of a couple in Arizona who used the soil on their land to make CEB blocks that cost 97 times less than cement blocks.
Building a Roundhouse with Woodhenge and Cobwood
“Building a cobwood roundhouse over a six week course in six weeks, Spring2008 at Denmark Farm, near Lampeter, West Wales”