Courses and Training by amazonails
amazonails creates a fun and friendly approach to building, inspiring you to build by yourself
Our aim is to provide a service enabling and encouraging you to build by yourself. Our training encourages people that wouldn't be normally on building site to be involved in the building process as we all use to be in the past.
In previous generations a whole community would be involved in a barn raising, bringing the harvest in, or building a house.
The element of mutual help in construction of houses is missing in our contemporary culture. If people experienced the same feeling of participation on building their own dwellings today as in previous generations, we could all have a different involvement the environment that we inhibit today and we could experience a great amount of pleasure and fun during the process.
If you want to learn about natural and sustainable building, then here you'll find information about the courses we run.
We provide on-site training in strawbale and natural construction, including strawbale wall raising, low impact foundations, limecrete and earthen flooring, lime rendering and clay plastering for fee-paying course participants.
We can also train a local firm of builders or carpenters in the specific knowledge needed in order to work with straw successfully. We would oversee the quality control of the strawbale construction whilst the rest of the building, including roofing, plumbing, electrics and carpentry would typically be carried out either by local firms, carpenters or self-builders.
Most of our courses are real builds, so what you achieve during your learning experience will become part of a home or community building for decades to come!
The courses are suitable for all levels of experience, from professional builders to those who are just dipping their toes into the world of sustainable architecture or self-building. All courses will provide you with the theory of the building techniques, followed by lots of hands-on building experience, offering a fantastic opportunity to discover for yourself what strawbale building is all about. If you're thinking of building your own Strawbale structure, our courses will prove invaluable in providing the experience and know-how to do it yourself.
Some courses involve building an entire structure from start to finish, whilst others focus on specific parts of the process such as laying foundations, lime rendering or working with clay.
The atmosphere on our building sites is qualitatively different to that found on the majority of other building sites. We deliberately encourage a feeling of being part of a group, and working together to achieve a common aim. Through our method of teaching we positively encourage the recognition of each person's skills and past experiences. These can be the ability to organise, communicate, and share feelings and ideas; problem solving and lateral thinking, having a good eye for detail, good observational skills, hand to eye coordination, the ability to keep a site tidy and in order, which is essential for health and safety and the well-being of the whole group. All these skills are necessary on a building site.
On our building sites people are well motivated, look out for each other, share experience, and have fun. Inevitably this means that we achieve a lot, health and safety is excellent, and the quality of our work is high.
Using tools for the first time can often present a big barrier for people, but once their initial nervousness and unfamiliarity has been overcome, their own natural skill can develop, and it can be a tremendously empowering experience to wield a hammer effectively for the first time. We teach the safe use of tools on site, and how to use the whole body to do a task, integrating hand skills with body stance, observation, thought and feeling. We encourage an atmosphere of learning and sharing, so each person is not only learning new skills themselves, but also can share this new-found knowledge with others. As trainers, we also learn a lot from each group we work with. In this atmosphere, quite amazing transformations can take place. People become empowered, and this means not only on the building site, but within their own life and relationships as well. They become more effective people.
Training & Education
Amazonails offers regular training events in its all weather training centre in Todmorden, but also at different venues across the UK, including strawbale seminar venues in Hackney and Windermere.
There is also the option for us to come to you.
We offer:
- CPD Seminars for professionals in the Built Environment industry
- Introductory level Seminars aimed at the self-builder
- A range of fully illustrated presentations
- A variety of practical workshops on strawbale building, lime plastering, clay rendering and low-impact foundations
- Introductory courses in a range of skills and crafts associated with sustainable living
- Opportunities for team building events
Our trainers have many years experience of strawbale building, backed up by academic expertise in their subjects. Barbara Jones has pioneered the use of strawbale buildings here in the UK over the last 13 years, and has adapted many methods in the building process to suit the UK climate and to reduce the impact of the buildings we create.
Both Bee and Barbara and our other trainers all have much experience in building which is passed on during these training events, with the opportunity to ask questions relevant to your own build.