The View from the Emerald Isle
Friday, 10 June 2005
Graham Strouts
- Contact via Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability, Cork
Format: talk and discussion
Summary
Graham described both the construction of his own roundhouse and that of a number of buildings (cob and straw bale) plus yurt in the area of Cork, Ireland, where he lives.
Key points
- His own house is a round house with a reciprocal frame roof (no need for a central supporting pole). The roof supports consist of whole logs set in the ground (the ends burnt to preserve them) and the walls of cordwood stuck together with cob (subsoil, lime and straw). It has a turf roof.
- Yurt making: green ash poles split from the round using a froe, then steam bent. It has a central circle in the centre of the roof consisting also of ash. Other woods used in the walls and roof: hemlock and hazel.
- Other buildings; theatre space with cordwood walls, two cob houses (two storeys).
- Cob buildings will last 400 years.
- Straw bale house. Graham said that such houses were fine in the wet climate of Ireland as long as you observed the following: use a damp proof course, overhanging eaves, build when dry, use dry bales, and render (eg with lime putty).
Further reading
Tony Wrench: How to build your own Low Impact Roundhouse (Permanent Publications).
Fuelling the Future, the Challenge and Opportunity of Peak Oil, Kinsale, Cork, Ireland, June 18-19 2005. info@fuellingthefuture.org.
[Scribe: Ed Tyler]