Straw House

In this thesis we presented a house made of straw. We presented the purpose, objectives, basic statements and assumptions. We also described the research methods used. In the following chapters, we defined what straw is and then described its properties and explained what other uses there are.

We introduced how straw or straw bales were used in construction in the past and today. We pictorially showed the first most famous straw houses at home and abroad and described some of their attractions.

Next, we presented the types of construction and their characteristics (wood; bale replacing wooden skeleton construction; bale as an insulating element in a wooden skeleton construction and other methods).

Then we have described two types of natural plasters, namely clay plaster and lime plaster. In the first one, we listed the favorable characteristics of these plasters and their production on straw. In lime plaster, we explained what is burnt lime and what is slaked lime.

Continuing with the description of tests and certificates, we were interested in fire protection and thermal insulation of the straw wall.

As an interesting fact, we presented a special method of construction from straw bales, the prefabricated method, where the walls are prepared in advance by a workshop and then assembled at the construction site.

This type of construction was presented to us in an interview by the director of Snopje Tomaž Činč.

We talked with him about his view of this type of construction and individual construction stages of a house made of straw ballast or frame of the house, roof, partitions and ceiling, floor of the house, facade, clay plasters and their impact on health, carpentry, installations, heating, bathrooms.

We have also presented the disadvantages and advantages of straw construction from the point of view of individual construction experts and the author of this thesis, and concluded with a case study.

Described were the stages of construction of a house made of straw bales, which belongs to the author of this thesis, which we have also reinforced pictorially.

It was concluded with a review of professional literature, our own experience in construction and information from an interview with Tomaž Činč.

It confirmed the hypotheses about the protection of straw from external influences, fire protection of a straw house, its durability, achieving the standards of passive construction and straw playing the role of load-bearing capacity of the building.