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Is the house of straw the house of the future?
13/07/10
Edited by Sophie Griffiths. Straw is plentiful, can help to combat carbon emissions and is a good insulator - and according to researchers at Bath University's BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, it could eventually be used to meet the UK's housing needs.
Professor Peter Walker and Dr. Katharine Beadle have been testing a straw abode - the BaleHaus - for the past 18 months, the Guardian reports.
Far from being a ramshackle construction of bales, it is a sleek, Scandinavian-style two-bedroom unit that uses panels made from tightly-packed straw inside lime-rendered wooden frames.
This ModCell system outperforms Building Regulations requirements for fire and wind resistance - and using straw could help builders to reduce their carbon footprint, as it stores CO2 unlike concrete and brick, which are both energy intensive to make and transport.
Developing the BaleHaus would cost around £132,000, but Professor Walker believes it could be "cost-competitive" with other construction methods through the savings that would come through lower heating bills.
"Longer term, we'd like to maybe get some people to live in it ... and see how it performs in a real-life situation," he commented.
In related news, the University of Salford plans to a construct traditional terraced house inside a sealed test chamber to research ways that builders can improve the energy efficiency of older properties.
