permaculture

["Ingvald Erga" <ergagard@world-online.no>]

About the question on strawbales in greenhouse. I copi a mail I have recived
from Cananda about the subject. By the way about my name Ingvald, I am a he.

Ingvald Erga
Norway


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn Oliphant" <LYNN.OLIPHANT@usask.ca>
To: <ergagard@world-online.no>
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2000 7:23 PM
Subject: Hello!


>     Dear Ingvald,
>     My wife Rhonda and I have just returned home after a month-long trip
> down into the U.S.  We were pleasantly surprised to find your
> informative fax regarding your farm and inquiry about our low-input
> greenhouses.  We have been following the advice of Eliot Coleman in his
> book "Four-Season Harvest" and adding our experience with strawbale
> construction as we live in a very cold climate with winter temperatures
> that often go to minus 40 or lower.
>     We built a strawbale house with a buried strawbale perimeter
> insulation "foundation" and a strawbale roof as well as walls.  We live
> on a rolling piece of land that is now primarily in native vegetation;
> two thirds had never been cultivated and the other third we planted back
> to native grass.  We are attempting to follow permaculture principles
> and heat the house with a radiant floor system driven by solar hot water
> panels and a water jacket on our soapstone wood stove.  The house was
> designed to make use of passive solar energy as well as we have lots of
> sun.  We have a composting toilet and a rain water collection system
> from our roof.
>     Our experiments with low-input greenhouse vegetable production have
> been very promising.  Our basic design now is a simple hoop or quonset
> style made with 1 or 11/2 inch 20foot PVC pipe inserted onto small
> lengths of scrap pipe or rebar pounded into the ground 12 feet apart.
> Superstrong woven poly covers the hoops and is attached to 2x4 inch
> baseboards and end frames.  This extends our growing season by about a
> month at each end and more importantly protects our warm season crops
> from the wind.  We are now experimenting with the placement of cold
> frames within the greenhouse to allow for the harvesting of vegetables
> nearly year round as described in Coleman's book.
>     We have also built greenhouses using strawbale walls.  We feel that
> the ultimate greenhouse for our part of the world would have a strawbale
> north wall and partial roof with double glazing on the south faces with
> radiant heating of the soil using hot water (actually glycol) solar
> panels to provide the heat.
>     We have formed a local group we call the Prairie Institute for Human
> Ecology that is primarily involved in education and building
> demonstration projects.  It is wonderful to know that similar efforts
> are being made in many areas of the world.  Our current vision is to
> start work on an eco-village that would have a learning center as well
> as a group of dedicated people living on site.
>     I hope you and your family are having a good holiday!  Lynn Oliphant
>
>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kelly Finigan" <kfinigan@telus.net>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 7:48 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] corn burning and straw building


> Meg:
>
> pigs can tear a building apart.. a pig farmer around here built a
strawbale
> barn with stucco. The pigs tend to "root" about with their snouts and
> demolished the stucco. Another pig farmer friend thinks a knee-high
concrete
> wall inside would prevent the pigs from damaging the stucco. I don't know
> about the other animals, but my gut feel is a greenhouse with high
humidity
> might begin to rot if made from strawbales...maybe somebody has seen a
straw
> greenhouse?
>
> cheers,
> Kelly
>
> Kelly Finigan, M.Sc. P.Eng., Permaculture Designer
> Essential Elements Inc.
> 744 - 4 Street NW       Calgary, Alberta, Canada         T2N 1P2
> 1-403-283-7270           fax 283-9783     kfinigan@telus.net
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Meg Mullett" <meg@kcnet.com>
> To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2002 8:13 AM
> Subject: [permaculture] corn burning and straw building
>
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > My family and I moved to our little farm in NE Kansas 2 years ago.
We've
> got
> > 12.5 acres, a little 70 yr old house, 1 acre of vineyard, a small
orchard,
> a
> > little woods and several acres of pasture.  We spent the first year
mostly
> just
> > seeing what's here and putting in our vineyard. (I'm a winemaker)  The
> second we
> > started a large garden and got a couple pigs.  This coming year we wish
to
> fence
> > more and add some more animals.  We're thinking about chickens (a few
for
> eggs),
> > guinea hens (for bugs in the vineyard) and some meat goats (helping to
> clear
> > some brushy areas and for cash - we've got large hispanic and muslim
> populations
> > in Kansas City and we believe we've got a good market for them).
> >
> > As we grow our little farm each year, we are wishing to tread more
lightly
> on
> > the planet.  And with a "dance with the one that brung ya" sort of
> attitude, we
> > are looking to use resources that are plentiful in our area. We are
> thinking
> > about building our animal shelters out of straw bale, and installing a
> corn
> > burning stove in the house for winter heat. We're using propane right
now.
> >
> > I am wondering if any of you might share some of your experiences with
> either of
> > these things.  Have you used straw bales for animal enclosures?  Are
there
> any
> > special considerations we should be taking or thinking about when doing
> this?
> > How do straw bale buildings hold up as animal enclosures?  Can they take
a
> > beating by goat heads?  Might pigs leaning on them and scratching every
> day
> > cause some problems?   Do some animals like to eat the stucco/plaster?
> What
> > kind of measures might be required if you wanted to create a fairly high
> > humidity enclosure, - like a greenhouse, or a chicken coop?   What about
> > moveable enclosures on skids?  Would the weight of such a building be
too
> great
> > to move about as you pasture the animals?  Do you think straw bale would
> work
> > for those sort of things?
> >
> > How about corn stoves?  Have any of you used one?  Do they really work
as
> well
> > as advertised?  For those that aren't sure about what there are, here
are
> a few
> > links:
> >
> > http://www.agriculture.com/buyersguide/sidebyside/sbs_cornstove.html
> > http://news.mpr.org/features/200101/31_galballye_cornstove-m/
> >
> >
> > I look forward to your thoughts.  Any tips or advice you might send
would
> be
> > greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Meg
> > Spring Hill, KS
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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