From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

[edit] Introduction to Building with Straw Bales

[edit] History

While use of grass-family plant fibers has long been a part of building methods worldwide, dating far back into prehistory, actual straw-bale construction was pioneered in Nebraska in the United States, in the late 19th/early 20th century, in response the then-new availability of baling machines and the lack of significant amounts of timber or buildable sod needed to build barns and housing in the Sandhills region. Under the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Kinkaid Act of 1904, the "sod-busters" were required to develop and live on their new property for five years in order to maintain ownership; building housing was a legal requirement. The straw-bale house was first seen simply as a make-shift structure, to provide temporary lodging, until enough funds were available to pay for the shipping in of timbers, to build a "real" house. However, these homes quickly proved to be comfortable, durable, and affordable, and so became regarded as permanent housing. Over the past century they have indeed outlived many neighbouring timber-frame buildings, and a number are in continuing use today and beginning their second century.

After World War II a scattering of U.S. veterans turned to straw-bale for shelter, but modern straw-bale construction experienced a re-emergence in the late 1970s, after the 1973 energy crisis helped bring issues of real sustainability to the forefront, with first examples built primarily in the southwestern United States. Now, they are being built the world around, from northern Canada, Mongolia and post-Chernobyl Russia, to Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. Because it is based on an inexpensive and renewable so-called "agricultural waste product," with a technique relatively simple for beginners to implement, involving few synthetic chemicals and providing effective energy-conserving insulation, it continues to grow in popularity, especially with do-it-yourself-ers "owner-designer-builders" and other proponents of sustainability.

[edit] Current Perspective and Regulations

(Please help expand this section)

Building with Straw Bales is slowly but surely gaining ever wider acceptance across America, Europe and Australasia. With some charitable groups using it in poorer countries it is also beginning to appear in South America and Eastern Europe.

Government bodies are in general less hostile than you might at first expect. There are now many reports and studies you can use to help win them over (see the section [/Related_Resources/Technical_Studies Technical Studies, Reports and Tests]).

Several researchers and government bodies in Canada, including the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Company, are testing the abilities of straw-bale construction. They hope to develop building code to be included in the next revision of the Canadian Building Code.