Subject: Too much text from India
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:32:21 PST
Dear sb-enthusiasts,

Last year I too got bitten by the SB virus. After following a workshop by the SB women close to Amsterdam, The Netherlands and one by Pascal Thepaut in Brittany, France I was hooked. Then Coralie, my wife, and I decided to go to India for some time so I took my slides and some documentation with me 'just in case'. After a week in Auroville (a community based on the ideas of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother) we felt this was for us a good place to stay and learn about many different things. Auroville, like the rest of the world, is struggling with a housing problem. There is not enough money to house all who want to come to live here using conventional methods and materials. So we organized a slide show showing how to build Nebraska style SB structures. Many were enthousiastic and wanted to know when we were doing a workshop in Auroville. Now we are two full moons later and the house is standing, mud plastered and all.
Although the rain season is two months behind us it rained a lot yesterday and today and the overhangs we provided seem to do their job. We built a very small (8m2 inside) Nebraska-style building on an existing foundation I 'found' while chasing out the cows.
The house has a keetu roof(palm leaves on a wooden structure), a 16m2 loft to create extra living space, and a 8m2 balcony so the occupants can sleep under the stars during the hot summer months. No water or electricity, candle light and a solar lamp will do. We could avoid the cost of a toilet and kitchen since these facilities are communal. The whole house, including labour for the roof, came to about $500 US.

Two major challenges were to be met: Termites and the total unavailability of bales. For termites we noticed that they do not seem to eat the dry (rice) straw when it is stacked in the fields allowing the rain to run off. However when the straw is wet, the termites feast on it by the hundreds. Since any house here in Auroville needs a foundation that stops the termites we figured that straw, like any material, can be used once a safe foundation is in place. Strategies against termites used in Auroville are:
* Placing the house on concrete or granite pillars so the termite action can be followed and measures taken if needed
* Salt around the foundation and urinating on fresh termite activity also seems to have some effect.
* Sand arround the foundation discourages the tunnel making by the termites for which they need clay.
* Metal termite sheaths or a concrete foundation that comes out. Termites don't like making their tunnels upside down.
* Poison, and even kerosine are sometimes used.

Solving the bale issue was much more fun. We just made them ourselves. A strong wooden 'box' (130*40*50 inside space) placed vertically with the top and one side open. Two half doors can close up the side. Place two stirrups in the box and put some straw over them. Close the bottom door, and someone climbs into the box on top of the straw compressing the straw by feet mostly taking care of the edges and corners (middle always takes careof itself).
A second person adds straw while first stays in the press and walks the straw down. (smooth long socks prevent itching legs when wearingshorts). When halfway, close second door and proceed. When at desired length(full, half or custom size) take out the doors. Bring the stirrups arround close them with a winch and only then does the 'compressor' come off the bale. Pull out the bale and place it. We made the 'mistake' of walking on the bales during construction which now results in a very organic looking house because they bulge at places where pressure was exerted with the feet. Bales weighed between 20 and 23 kg at a size of 110*50*40cm. We were impressed at the compressing achieved but the rice stems are nowhere near as rigid as wheat stems. For the bevelled windows we found it was stronger and more exact to make them bevelled by starting with a diagonal floor piece in the press then by cutting the bale. The roof was not placed on the walls because the traditional roof design puts most of its load on the corners. So we took the (very cheap) pillars to support the roof which also allowed more overhang and a bigger loft. I did not have enough knowledge on roofing nor were there any funds available to come up with an alternative to the strength of the sb walls. I must say, itwas quite a challenge communicating with the Indian contractor who did not work with drawings. Faith was necessary and rewarded. Many people are enthusiastic, but many architects (and there are quite a few)are as sceptical as in the west. But I must admit, now that the house is there (extremely cute as it is) we are getting a much more positive response from them too.

We also went to Trichirapalli , where prof. S.S. Immanuel from the Bishop Heber Collge, already took the initiative of building India's first two sb-houses. One filled in walls from welded mesh, mud and then cement plastered with wooden poles for extra support in walls and roof. Another with hand made small bales with chicken mesh and rebar on two sides of the wall with connections between the steel with a hook. Cement pillars and cement plastered. The roof is cement with 20 cm thick straw flakes for insulation, rebar and steel between the flakes. Tests did not show a great insulation of the second house. My guess is that is because the high cement content of the roof. One thing was extremely interesting about the houses. They resisted a 1 meter high flood for 1.5 days and seemed to have dried out without a problem. This could mean a lot in India where the traditional mud houses fail in a flood and big parts of the country have a risk of flooding.

Other reasons for building with straw in India are: Low level of expertise needed. Cheapness of the material Solid walls absorb heat during the day (month after month) and radiate it during the night. The nights are hot enough as they are and do not require any extra heating. A ceiling fan is often used to deal with the extra heat, burning coal to provide that energy. Straw is burned in North India also I'm told. North Indian houses require a lot of wood for heating during the winter since they are poorly insulated.India is such a huge country that we cannot generalise. Many different climates make many different materials appropriate. Straw can definitely be one of those materials since nearly all corners of India grow grain of some sort. The country has 40 million homeless. Hudco (a government organisation that builds about 2 million houses a year) claims that for every 8$ that needs to be spent only 1$ is available. So they have come up with so called Building centers to get appropriate building technology to the people. So far building with straw has not been implemented by them. Most of the people from these building centers that I showed my pictures while at their conference in Delhi were very surprised and liked the idea very much. I think there is great scope for sb-building in India.