A house made of straw !!!

Wow...interesting. Don't know how resale value would go.

http://www.domain.com.au/news/sustainable-living-in-a-house-made-of-straw-20150912-gjky8x/

"Owner-builders Christian and Deepti Wetjen had a vision for a compact, flexible and modern design that suited multigenerational living and ticked many of the boxes for sustainable features.

Their Doubleview (Perth) property on an elevated 355-square-metre block is one of the first strawbale buildings in Perth and packs in 170 square metres of living space over two-and-a-half storeys..."

 

What if the big bad wolf comes?

 

Straw bale houses are more common in the country areas, they are really cool (literally!) and funky. You can make such interesting shapes and design



Would have taken them awhile to get that through Stirling council. I remember my friends builing with the polystyrene bricks in Trigg had to jump through a lot of hoops to get approval then would get door knocks from random strangers asking for help to get theirs through or just thanking them for paving the way.

 

Guess the people living there aren't smokers. Or would be petrified every time they used the gas stove.

 

It's not finished yet in that photo After that it would be plaster board or render.

 

My Auntie has a straw bale house in Palmerston North NZ. Really energy efficient and great design. Has a little trap door in the wall in the hallway that you can open and look at the straw and see what it is like prior to plastering.

 

It's an incredibly thermal efficient building material and actually can work even in high bushfire areas.

 

Yeah straw bale. Divine!

 

We had friends with one in Hobart that was above the snowline on a regular basis that would keep the whole house in shorts and t-shirts through winter by running a tiny pot belly stove. Perfect in that cold climate application where you just need to create a reverse fridge for months on end because it's freezing for all of winter and there is not much sunlight. They also used double glazing.

No point in Perth that I can see for that though - conductive thermal insulation just isn't the main driver in a temperate climate. If the sun can warm up the slab in Perth in winter through some north facing glass then it will stay warm for days on end, regardless of the insulation used. Passive solar design is far more important for thermal comfort in this climate than trying to create an esky.

 

An esky is temperature stable - not allowing the passage of heat from one side to the other

 

There were a couple of rammed earth houses being built when I was a kid, looks like times have changed though

Rammed earth houses

The popularity of rammed earth construction in Western Australia is falling due to its poor performance in computerised thermal assessments, despite the product's well-known insulation properties, researchers say.

Its waning popularity has prompted a conference with international experts from countries including China, North America, Europe and India joining architects, engineers, builders and thermal assessors in WA this week to reassess the future of the material.

Rammed earth is an ancient construction technique used around the world.

It reached peak popularity in WA around the Margaret River region in the 1980s where at one point 25 per cent of new dwellings were constructed from the material, spawning the development of cement-stabilised rammed earth.

Associate Professor Daniela Ciancio from the University of Western Australia's School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering has been conducting research into the properties of the building material.

 

Straw house in a bushfire area!?!?!?!?

Seems insane to me

 

Plenty of wooden framed and even timber houses in bushfire areas.

With the right treatment and render in place it's a safe material.

 

thats exactly the first thing I thought