Eco in Denmark: Straw bale houses earth quake resistant

My host in ecovillage "Friland", Caroline Meyer White at Engineers Without Borders in Denmark, is currently working on a specific building project in Pakistan after the flood. She and the engineers are building earth quake friendly straw bale houses with the right technique, to shelter the homeless during the cold winter to arrive! This is for the northern parts of Pakistan, where simple tents won't be enough. And here we also learned something new about straw bale houses: When constructed as explained in the link below, they are tested as earth quake resistant! This way, their new houses will not only shelter them, but also keep them more safe in the years to come, and.. it will be much cheaper to build and easier and faster to build as the locals are brought in who already know much of such building and local material is being used.

NEW INPUT: Straw and compressed straw as one of many natural materials, is different to metal/ bricks and compact material, as straw "breathes" and makes holes and space for the air to flow within its structure, so when the ground shakes the material itself "shakes" in circles with airflow and is more unlikely to collapse than a four-edge, thick wall-structure with no natural "airflow".

From abstract: "The objective of the shake table tests was to assess the seismic response of a 14’ x 14’ x 10’ full-scale house constructed with heavy detailing. The input motion was the Canoga Park Topanga Canyon record of the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake, Mw 6.7. The house was subjected to eight levels of seismic shaking, beginning at 25% of the recorded ground acceleration and increasing at 25% increments. The house survived 0.82g, twice the acceleration of the Canoga Park record. Although severely damaged, the building did not appear in danger of collapse, even at the end of the test sequence."

(Video of shake-table test below, requires Flash):

More information here: http://nees.unr.edu/projects/straw_bale_house.html

And at PAKSBAB: http://www.paksbab.org/

Donation-site (danish): SUPPORTPAKISTAN.DK

Eco in Denmark: Leaving farm in Kyse

Good memories from the apple ecofarm, here are some goodies:

I love the ocean.

More on the "Beatle" in the background further in this post

THE WOOD PELLET STOVE: The heating came from this modern wood pellet stove, a common ecological use in Denmark for saving money and energy. Combined with solar energy for electricity, the stove has some magnificent effects on amounts of hot water. Wood pellets, bought from left-overs at wood firms etc., are heated up to the hot water storage, which delivers domestic hot water and can supply the central heating system at the lowest possible costs.

Me on the tractor for the first time, it was fun

On a bike ride to the beach at Karrebæksminde (a very popular tourist resort), here is a funny "beatle-bridge" for ship traffic and the sign in front of the bridge says: "Save the environment, turn off your engine!" to the cars arriving to cross the bridge. Again: Motivation campaign in the danish spirit!

The "Beatle" :)

Old-fashioned wind mill