Natural Building
Natural building is the art of using naturally occurring materials as building supplies to create your home. Little or no processing is involved in the manufacturing of natural building materials. Natural building is also about designing our homes to be an integral part of the ecosystem we live in. The design should incorporate solar and wind patterns catch its own water and process its own waste. Natural buildings should be designed and built to last a lifetime with little or no waste. Consideration of how the building can be recycled or composted should be part of the design and material choices.
The idea of natural building is to use natural materials instead of the more destructive materials that are manufactured with high-energy yields and toxic chemicals. We all inherently know how to build with natural materials. Most of us who try it are hooked.
| Natural materials | insted of | conventional materials |
| stone rubble trench | concrete foundation | |
| earth plaster | concrete plasters | |
| cob and strawbale | wood framing, fiberglass insulation, plywood & sheetrock | |
| local harvested lumber | unsustainable logging & heavily transported lumber | |
| recycled materials | new materials |
Strawbale 
This natural building method is the construction of structure out of bales of straw stacked like bricks to make a wall system that is highly insulated. A strawbale wall has an average r-value of about 60. The use of strawbale makes sense as a building material because it uses waste products from agriculture. There are two types of strawbale - non-load bearing strawbale and load bearing strawbale. Post & beam infill is where the roof sets on a post and beam system attached to the foundation and the strawbale fill in the wall. In load bearing strawbale the bales are the wall system that support the weight of the roof.
Cob
Cob is created by mixing clay, soils, sand, and straw into a sculptural building material. Cob is used to build monolithic structures that are beautiful and artistic. Different forms of this building technique are found throughout the world and have been used through the centuries. It is the ultimate natural building material. It is readily available around the world, affordable, and proven to be a solid building product that resists weather and is seismically sound.
Light straw Clay Slip
Light clay slip is a loose straw coated with a clay slip or slurry packed into forms to build freestanding walls or packed between studs to fill the walls. Light straw clay slip has excellent thermal mass retention and insulation values. It resists pests, rot and fire.
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strawbuilder@msn.com