Tassie Straw House

31/08/2026

We’ve been in a phase of construction for a long while where each day consists of a small task, not much seems to be happening. Grand designs would have a hard time making this part seem interesting. After all those tasks put together we now have the first of two finishing coats for the Microcement floor.

05/06/2026

The earth floor tiles are coming along

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26/04/2026

Lime rendering really takes its toll on the hands. Even after wearing gloves when you can, it’s impossible to not get some on your hands at some point. We have a vinegar wash on standby to negate the alkalinity of the lime mix.

On the plus side we’re testing render ratios for our final coat to go on soon 🤞

07/04/2026

We’re putting in the late nights to keep this build moving 👏🏻 and finished our fourth day of lime rendering by work light. With the mesh coat the walls are straightening, the reveals are curving and the exterior character of our home is coming out.

05/04/2026

3rd coat of external lime render going on. We’re racing against the incoming frost…we had a scare the other night and were fully prepared to light a fire barrel next to the house to keep the frost away. We woke up at 4am to check the temperature and we were all good.

A frost on the wet wall can lead to the new layer delaminating, what’s worse is that this could happen many months afterwards 🥶 Rendering is tough on the body and wouldn’t want to do the same bit twice.

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11/01/2026

Here is our recent experience with aiming to build an airtight house. If you’re not aware the blower door test is for testing the airtightness of your home, which contributes massively to its overall energy efficiency & comfort. We’ve been building now for the past year and have at least a full body coat on the inside & out so it was time to see how the house was performing before we progressed past a point where we couldn’t seal up leaks behind linings & cabinetry. We came out with a number of 6ACH (Air Changes Per Hour), better than the average of 15ACH but no where near the passive house standard of 0.6ACH! (We’re not aiming for this by the way)

Problem areas were:
* Cracks in the body coat
* Transitions between materials - render/timber
* Bottom plate at the base of the wall
* Power/switch boxes.

Anywhere there’s a break in the skin of the render, air found its way from the outside through the bales and into the house.

We’ve sealed transitions between materials with a Sika 11FC flexible sealant and will have a final coat of render (crack free), when combined with airtight wrap & tape in the ceiling, from , it should eliminate the majority of air leakage.

Just some food for thought when you’re rendering and aiming to build an airtight house that will keep you toasty in winter, cool in summer, hopefully without any heating or cooling. Bear in mind that if your home is between 3-7ACH you should have mechanical ventilation to prevent build up of pollutants and gases.

And if you’re still reading and wondering why would we go through all this effort to stop a bit of air? We had our energy efficiency scorecard completed by with their Powerhaus app. You can adjust parameters and see a live update of your energy rating. The biggest change came through airtightness. We will hopefully achieve 9+ stars, and will update in a few months time when we do a follow up test. Blower door test conducted by Mat from 👌🏻