When originally conceived, the plans for the house targeted using straw bales for the exterior walls as well as the immediate inside walls representing the inside side of the bales.  About a third of the walls were, and will be, stone from the property itself and another third adobe blocks.  These walls will provide the thermal mass discussed in earlier posts on this site.

But what of the bathroom and other small walls that, for convenience and other factors, cannot or should not be adobe or stone?  Initially I had thought that these would be the usual drywall so ubiquitous in modern dwellings.

But drywall presents problems.  The first is that it does not like the earth plasters we will be using on the straw and (maybe) adobe walls.   Hanging the drywall backwards helps, but still joints will present a problem.  And drywall is not an earth friendly substance.  It takes tremendous energy (natural gas firings usually) to produce the stuff, and leftovers have become a real problem for landfills and even have begun polluting waterways and the oceans.  Drywall certainly has its benefits, but it is hardly “green” and green is something we are striving for.

The answer is that we will make these walls out of bamboo mats.  They take well to the earth plasters (I have worked on two mat walls at Canelo Arizona and can attest) and we can tie them in at corners using burlap.  And talk about a green product.  The only thing I might get more excited about is building the house out of hemp … Ah, but who am I kidding… This ain’t The Netherlands.

 

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