Peter and Natasha

OWNER BUILDER WEBSITES

Our straw bale owner builder friends Cam and Leora's website and blog: http://camleora.id.au

Our very good friend (and website designer) Matt Noyes has a great website about their rammed earth house building adventures: http://noyes.com.au

Our friends Hans and Cath who are straw bale owner builders near Ballarat:  http://hansandcath.info

Our friend Jonas who is building a log home in USA: http://gallery.me.com/jonasthaler

Our friend Ari who allowed us to help her build her straw bale house back in 2008 so we could get some serious hands on experience before building ourselves: http://web.me.com/summerfilmschool/Site/Photos.html#grid

BOOKS:

A Pattern Language (1977) - Towns - Building - Construction by Alexander, Ishikawa, Silverstien and others
We used this book to help us come up with the design of the house - it is a unique book, we bought it second hand off Amazon, and we still refer to it. If you google it, there are heaps of websites with info on the book and its patterns.

Building Your Straw Bale Home by Brian Hodge (published by CSIRO publishing) www.anvill.com.au Brian is also our building consultant. This book was on site with us every day. Natasha did Brian's course back in 2006, and has lots of notes and a workbook from it which we use often, and we also have Brian's 12 DVD home-study workshop “You Can Build a Straw Bale House”. As complete novices, these references have been and continue to be, invaluable!

The Hand Sculpted House (2002) - A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage by Evans, Smith and Smiley
This is a fanastic book full of great practical ideas even though it talks mainly about cob (mixture of clay/soil and straw)

MAGAZINES:

The Earth Garden - stacked full of great articles on straw bale houses, gardening, living sustainably, cooking and generally taking care of this amazing planet of ours. Check out the website: www.earthgarden.com.au/  

Renew - we wouldn't be without this mag. It has so many fantastic articles, 'how to' info, ideas and great reviews of different products such as grey water systems, water tanks and composting toilets. We love it!

OTHER WEBSITES:

Earth Garden Straw Bale Home - lots of great info and discussion board www.earthgarden.com.au/strawbale/strawhome.

Ausbale - promotes the art & science of straw bale building.www.ausbale.org

Freecycle - if you haven't discovered the joy of this amazing network, check it out at www.freecycle.org/

Ebay - we have found many a fabulous bargain on ebay, and met some fantastic people in the process. www.ebay.com.au