Award winning hemp house Part 1, Kirstie Wulf’s published article in The Owner Builder, Published by CSIRO Publishing in Nov 2016.
| Publication | THE OWNER BUILDER |
| Article | Award winning hemp house Part 1 |
| Published by | CSIRO Publishing |
| Author (s) | Kirstie Wulf |
| Date | October/November 2016 |
| Notes | Page 68-73 |
| Link | www.theownerbuilder.com.au |
Excerpt Intro
I am passionate about natural building and when the opportunity arose to build a house myself I started seriously investigating the options.
I had built with mud bricks previously, but did not want to repeat the hard work over a whole house. The mud brick shed I had built only used half size mud bricks, but once I got over shoulder height and was working off the ground, the heavy lifting became less enjoyable.
The use of straw bales was dismissed; on an 800m2 block I did not have the space to ‘waste’ on thick walls.
Light earth (straw coated in clay slip and built around a frame using a temporary formwork) appealed to me as it has thinner, fl atter walls and I began to seriously investigate this option. I read many books (list at end) plus anything I could find on the internet or in magazines about light earth.
However, my research at that time led me to have some concerns about the light earth drying out sufficiently and at that time I was not confi dent that I would be able to work out the right clay mix. Subsequent work I have done with light earth has led me to conclude that these concerns were misplaced, but that was my thinking at the time.
