Building a passive solar strawbale cabin | 1,5 years in 14 minutes

in the Autumn of 2020 we moved from Belgium to Estonia with the goal of building up an off-grid Homestead that could provide us with food Beauty and more time freedom [Music] it is also meant to be dreamed of building our own home but we had little building experience beforehand to keep it as simple as possible we opted for an uncomplicated design a long rectangular form suitable for optimal Sim catchments with no separate rooms inside for the first period we lift in a tiny old cabin that was on the land whilst making preparations for the bigger cabin at the end of the Autumn of 2020 the preparation started cutting of trees opening up the growing area that would become our future Garden followed by hours and days of debarking on cold winter days the first priority was making some sort of an insulated closet for the solar energy system the batteries and the inverter that should be protected by the frost [Music] the cabin foreign to get out all the fluids from the trees and protect them we burn them as soon as the first Frost subsided we started digging the holes and raised the first part of the frame Jonas learned about making some joints from a couple of books we ordered and practiced on the go [Music] foreign once the frame was standing we added a waterproof barrier and assemble underlined corrugated roofing material that was pretty straightforward to attach to the roof beams the next project was to add the floor beams to the frame in the summertime we had stopped working on the build for a few months due to health issues caused by a tick bite but with the arrival of the bills work finally took up again in August finishing and insulating up the floor the Bales didn't look like they were of the best quality and we felt quite worried about them some looked a bit fluffy and were quite loose we had to find a way to make them as compressed as possible in our wall [Music] [Music] [Music] we're putting Hazel sticks throughout to make the walls stronger the background looks quite uneven and Fluffy at this point here Ariana's is putting in a stone foundation for our water storage of 2 000 liters everything heavy got a separate stone foundation from the frame of the house to make the walls more even and ready for plastering we had to trim them foreign so that means we can make our own clay plaster for building projects in Autumn there was a lot of plastering to be done because when the first Frost come in it's over I wanted at least to have one layer done on each side to close in and protect the bills so a lot of digging and mixing by hand followed [Music] foreign [Music] anything on these strawberry walls we are hammering in some Hazel branches that serve as a support for putting up shelves to keep it as simple as possible we have Windows and two sliding doors on the south side and nowhere else there is one back door that allows us to add another bedroom extension on the back one day and allows for extra airflow in the summertime foreign [Music] class from a local producer and it was quite nerve-wracking transporting it with our car to our Homestead over the dirt roads and putting it into place luckily it all went fine [Music] foreign [Music] it took me weeks of making batches quite repetitively to cover all the walls I can tell I consumed a lot of podcasts in those days once it started freezing outside I shifted to start working on the inside walls whilst I was Plastering Jonas was trying to figure out how to build the measuring cooking stove with a heated bench we bought some plants online but he had never done any brick work before so he was a bit nervous as with everything with some tweaks and twists it worked out in the end [Music] it was getting really cold though and drying the stove out proved not to be so easy [Music] inside the building it was still cold as well while outside temperatures were dropping quite a lot below zero all the air gaps and leaks became pretty clear priority now is putting up the ceiling and getting some insulation in so we could at least strap some of the heat of the stove whilst working on the inside whilst the big snowstorm was coming in you'll not hurry to put up the finishing touches of the chimney so the snow didn't fall through the pipes at this point I was still using the outside kitchen attached to the little cabin we're living in just as last winter I was getting pretty tired of it it was very cold so that motivated is quite good to keep moving on to start building the kitchen up [Music] foreign [Music] hours in the winter time we sanded oiled and crafted a simple kitchen together that would provide us with enough space for our supplies [Music] we also installed a gas bit as an extra grouping option and finished up with installing the tiles foreign [Music] after that I finally had a functional kitchen whilst the rest of the house was still a big mess it was a point of rest in the chaos and there was running water [Music] we also longed for a proper warm shower so far we had managed with a small bathtub that we had put in front of the stove to wash ourselves but now it was time for an update the tiles we found in a discount but we had bought too few so we finished the shower up with some wood we had left over which required legs and on the floor we used some Terrace styles [Music] [Music] we added a bit more storage space in the kitchen that would also serve as an edge over sleeping Loft [Music] after the mattresses were installed we finally spent our first night in the new cabin [Music] the weeks that fall out we added some light features a ladder and curtains and it started to feel really cozy thank you which Springtime quickly approaching now we finished this chapter of the build with making a closet for our jackets and some storage for my art supplies [Music] the last thing I did was sanding and oiling a part of the floor foreign onwards we've been focusing on other projects like a greenhouse the guest house and the gardens but the house was a good place to live even when not totally finished in springtime the house was nicely warm by the Sun but during the summer time our house felt a little bit too much like a greenhouse with all the windows on the south and in many hours of sunshine so we will be adding a Terrace next year on this side with plants growing over it and trellises that keep the Summer Sun out but lose our lives in Autumn so the sun can warm the hearts up again during the rest of the seasons in winter time we will be using our stove because the sun will be too low to reach her house over the tree line first half and most important part of the Interior is now finished this coming winter it's time to develop the sitting area a bit more and make some more furniture [Music] currently I'm working on the outside of the house doing a second finishing plaster it is taking me some weeks again making a better sometimes two a day if I'm not distracted with eating strawberries from the garden the reason we share the story is because we want people to know there are alternatives out there and building a house like this is not that difficult if we can do it overall it was a great and empowering experience working with natural materials is a real joy and a very different process from building with modern building materials [Music] thanks so much for watching and I hope to see you in the next video thank you

Channel: The Land of Slow Living

Views: 232,298

Keywords:

Id: TrK1H0TzCM8

Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2022