Our high-performance straw bale home in Brattleboro, Vermont has been featured in a fantastic video put together by 475 High Performance Building Supply. Visit 475's website to see the video about this project and learn about the excellent high-performance building products available to builders today!

On December 7th, Vermont Natural Homes will join a group of local craftspeople sharing their crafts. In addition to live demonstrations of woodworking, blacksmithing, and chip carving, we will demonstrate hand-hewing timbers and other traditional timber framing techniques.

There will also be a variety of hand-crafted, locally made gifts of woodenware, hand-wrought iron, and carvings available for purchase. For more information, see our flyer below. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) 

Hope to see you there!

We couldn't be more excited to announce that on June 6, 2014, we will be speaking to students in Yestermorrow's Natural Building Certificate program. Chad received his Natural Building Certificate through this program in 2012 and it was truly an incredible experience. We are thrilled to return to meet this year's participants and visit with our mentors, teachers, colleagues, and friends.

On Saturday July 12, 2014, we will be giving a free public talk and tour of our home in Brattleboro, Vermont. This will happen during the straw bale installation and plastering phases. Throughout the tour we will share samples of material options, field questions, and discuss natural building.

Space is limited, so we ask that you reserve a spot. To do so, or to be put on a list to receive information about other talks and tours, please send an email to info@vermontnaturalhomes.com.

As we transition into spring, Vermont Natural Homes will be busy with an exciting speaking schedule. 

On March 26, Chad will present to his peer members of the Building Science Guild, a subgroup of the Sustainable Energy Outreach Network (SEON) in Brattleboro, Vermont. This presentation will include a brief history of straw bale construction, current best practices, and an overview of some of the research that has been done regarding fire, moisture, structure, and thermal performance of natural buildings. 

On March 31, he is giving a similar talk to Advanced Sustainable Design and Building Science students at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire. 

On April 26, we will be packing up our hand tools and mock-ups and samples, and heading to the Cape Cod Mini Maker Faire at Cape Cod Community College. We are excited about this opportunity to share natural building with a great community at a great family-friendly event. 

Keep an eye out for announcements about more upcoming talks. Wishing all a Happy Spring!

We are excited to announce that we will be exhibiting at the Cape Cod Mini Maker Faire on April 26, 2014 at Cape Cod Community College. To learn about our exhibit, the Faire and/or the Maker community, please click here.

Last week, Vermont Natural Homes was invited by high school instructor and fellow SEON member Mitch Sidd to speak to his Green Engineering students at Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center in Claremont, NH.

We gave a presentation about natural building methods and materials, during which students examined and brainstormed about the lifecycle of various natural, green and conventional building materials. We will be returning to the school to give another talk in the near future, this time with a focus on Natural Building Science.

Education is very important to us!  We are excited to see that Mitch and his colleagues are going above and beyond to teach sustainable building practices in their classrooms, and we are grateful to be given the opportunity to be part of it!