​Build naturally...Live sustainably

My definition of natural building is this:

Use materials you have locally in abundance, that can be harvested without harm, and build in a way that ensures health & energy efficiency in your climate.

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Several variables determine which material is best suited for your application, including: thermal performance, budget, sweat equity goals, and skill of your work force.  This means no single solution will suit every situation.  And it means you will need to understand the properties of various building materials around you.

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How do you know which materials work best for your application?​

​The answer is simple: IT DEPENDS!  (of course!)
To help sort out which materials are better suited for your application, it's important to understand some basic material properties.  Then I'll explain how to use those attributes to your greatest advantage.

STRAW insulates.  What this means is that a wall built of strawbales or other straw-based material slows down heat energy traveling from one side of the wall to the other.  A good insulator acts like a down jacket that keeps your body heat inside the jacket instead of getting disbursed to the cold winter air.  A well-insulated house will use less energy to heat in winter than a poorly insulated house, because the insulation keeps the heat inside.  If you use an air conditioner in summer, insulation will keep the heat outside, so again you need less energy to keep cool.

CLAY materials act as thermal mass.  Clay walls store heat energy because thermal mass is like  storage battery for heat (or cool) energy.  This means clay materials are good at absorbing heat energy from the sun or a fire and storing that heat.  When the air temperature drops lower than the temperature of the clay material, the battery stored heat releases back into the air.  In this way, clay absorbs a lot of heat energy and then releases the heat over time, long after the heat source is gone.  Conversely, a shaded thermal mass with no heat input will stay cool in the summer and absorb heat energy out of the warmer air around it (thus having a net cooling effect, like free air conditioning).

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How to best use these characteristics to your advantage?​

​The answer depends on your climate and what you are building.  If you will use energy to change the inside temperature and keep it something different from the outside temperature, then you want a good insulator...ie, straw.  If you live in a mild climate where the temperature swings are day-to-night instead of seasonal, then you want thermal mass to average out temperature swings...ie, clay.  Thermal mass can also provide highly beneficial interior elements in conjunction with passive solar design, to capture heat from the southern sun in winter (when the sun is low) but remain shaded in summer (when the sun is high in the sky).

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