Ontario Straw Bale Building Coalition

The Sustainable Building Design and Construction class has posted a video illustrating the process they used to create a slip straw wall for a Habitat for Humanity project [Continue reading...]

Jim Carfrae’s PhD thesis from University of Plymouth, UK, is now available online at http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/548

This thesis is an investigation into the moisture performance of straw bales used in the construction of buildings. In order to assess the moisture performance of the straw bales in the walls of a building in this damp climate, a simple [Continue reading...]

Evolve Builders is selling a plaster pump. They used it for a number of seasons for straw bale plaster work for $1000. It comes with a “power trowel” attachment, as well as many additional parts. One of the pistons needs to be retooled and therefore the pump comes as-is, but Evolve says is in sound mechanical [Continue reading...]

The OSBBC wishes to thank the following organizations for making the 2011 annual general meeting a smashing success:

Food

Agora Café (contact: Maire & Morgan), 3015 Dundas St West, 416 761 9991, agora.cafe.googlepages.com
The Sweet Potato 2995 Dundas St West, 416 762 4848, www.thesweetpotato.ca : food donation + purchases discount
Aangen Community Centre www.aangen.com donated yogi tea, [Continue reading...]

The apprenticeship committee of the OSBBC has made two surveys available about the development of a straw bale sub-trade apprenticeship program for installing and plastering bale walls. Please help out by providing your opinions about a potential apprenticeship program for straw bale wall systems and (possibly) other natural building systems.

For professionals (those who have led 3 [Continue reading...]

Please help us promote this event.  Download and post the following posters.

download pdf poster for email

download pdf poster for high quality print

Join the OSBBC on Sunday, May 1 for our 2011 AGM

It is a great opportunity to network with the builders, designers and home owners from across Ontario that focus on [Continue reading...]

Mark your Calendar! First Annual Home Sweet Home Awards Gala

Join OntarioGreenSpec.ca for an elegant mix and mingle to celebrate Ontario’s best and brightest talent from the green building industry and academic communities. Network with the province’s leading home builders, designers, suppliers, policy-setters, academics, and post-secondary students. Four “best in class” green homes [Continue reading...]

Chris Magwood narrates a video introduction to prefabricated straw bale wall systems, based on work done by the Sustainable Building Design and Construction Program at Sir Sanford Fleming College in Peterborough, Ontario. The project featured is for a LEED Platinum certified home built by the 2010 class for Habitat for Humanity [Continue reading...]

OntarioGreenSpec.ca presents…
Home Sweet Home Competition

Calling all green housing leaders, builders, designers, and suppliers;
if you’re helping to green Ontario’ s housing sector, then we want to
hear from you! We’re looking to award four shining examples of
low-rise projects that were built or renovated in either 2009 or 2010.

Enter Now! The Home Sweet [Continue reading...]

The City of Toronto has an open request for proposals for design-build of a straw bale children’s teaching kitchen building in High Park.

There is a mandatory site meeting on-site at 10:00 AM, April 9 2010. Proposals are then due [Continue reading...]