This is a great video from a single mom who built her own straw bale home for $50,000 while working still full time and livin on the land. She gives some great advice here for anyone who is considering building their own straw bale home, from labor, to coding, to construction.

It’s easy to finish construction of even the most environmentally sound building, and even easier to demolish one, without regard to the waste products of construction. Astonishingly, building waste accounts for nearly HALF of all trash in landfills across the United States. This can be quite easily avoided—and should be.

Trying to figure out how to heat your house without wasting energy? Try installing direct heat beneath the floorboards or in the wall panels. Known as radiant heat due to its transmission of thermal energy from one object to another (i.e. heat flows from the floor directly to objects and people), this type of system is more efficient than traditional baseboard heating since much less heat energy is lost in the piping system.

So you’re building a new home, or adding an addition, and you want to pursue the most sustainable options available. Surprisingly, soy and bio-based materials have recently been spotlighted by the green building industry as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional insulation like fiberglass.

Although there are some quality natural alternatives for finishing walls on the market today it seems that the most natural and longest lasting alternative is clay plaster. American Clay, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has developed a beautiful suite of clay finishes and colors that seem to bring out a look, feel and texture that paint could never achieve.

We’ve talked about straw bale constructions here before, so we know this is a realistic form of construction. They don’t blow down as easy as the storybooks say, and the houses are quite beautiful. But is it really safe? Isn’t straw highly flammable? What about earthquakes? There is actually evidence to suggest straw-bale accommodations are SAFER than current methods of home design.

Cob is an ancient building technology being rediscovered for today’s green home. A gob is a clump of dirt and fiber that can be tossed from builder to builder on a cob work site. If throwing mud isn’t enough, try squishing it between your toes. Cob is traditionally made by mixing sand, clay, straw, and water with bare feet in a labor-intensive yet rewarding process for the do-it-yourselfer.

In green building, using a healthy and eco-friendly finish is just as important as selecting the right material. When it comes to wood flooring, green builders have a wide array of products at their fingertips.

Houses built out of foam sandwiches are both eco-friendly and strong enough to withstand earthquakes.  Meet the SIP, or Structural Insulated Panel–a thick layer of foam insulation pressed between two sheets of plywood or oriented strand board.
SIP homes are so airtight that the EPA has waived its blower door test requirement for SIP houses.  Because [...]

Looking for earth-friendly way to build walls. Simple. Take a bag and fill it with dirt.  It’s cheap.  It’s simple.  It’s also a versatile and fun green building technology.
Filled with dirt, earthbags lend tremendous thermal mass to stabilize the temperature of the structure.  Filled with lighter material such as rice hulls or vermiculite, they serve [...]