The Straw Bale House (A Real Goods Independent Living Book) [Paperback]

Athena Swentzell Steen (Author), Bill Steen (Author), David Bainbridge (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Real Goods Independent Living Book | Publication Date: December 1, 1994

Imagine building a house with superior seismic stability, fire resistance, and thermal insulation, using an annually renewable resource, for half the cost of a comparable conventional home. Welcome to the straw bale house! Whether you build an entire house or something more modest-a home office or studio, a retreat cabin or guest cottage-plastered straw bale construction is an exceptionally durable and inexpensive option. What's more, it's fun, because the technique is easy to learn and easy to do yourself. And the resulting living spaces are unusually quiet and comfortable.

The Straw Bale House describes the many benefits of building with straw bales:

• super insulation, with R-values as high as R-50
• good indoor air quality and noise reduction
• a speedy construction process
• construction costs as low as $10-per-square-foot
• use of natural and abundant renewable resources
• a better solution than burning agricultural waste straw, which creates tons of air pollutants

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Get a leg up on the first Little Pig with The Straw Bale House, your guide to inexpensive, durable, earth-friendly construction that will stand up to much more than the Big Bad Wolf. Authors Athena Swentzell Steen and Bill Steen founded the Canelo Project, which promotes innovative building; David Bainbridge is a California restoration ecologist; and David Eisenberg is an alternative-materials builder who pioneered straw bale wall testing. Between them, they have encyclopedic knowledge of their subject. The book is comprehensive, broadly covering why and how to build with straw and then focusing on the details, which are both intellectually and aesthetically delightful.

Beside being cheap, clean, and lightweight, straw also provides advantages like energy efficiency and resistance to seismic stresses. For the nervous Martha Stewart types, there are scads of black-and-white and color plates of strikingly beautiful interiors and exteriors from New Mexico to southern France. Both new and experienced builders will appreciate the clear, simple instructions and diagrams, as well as practical explanations for dealing with building codes and insurers. The Straw Bale House shows us advantages so numerous and dramatic that you'll wonder why we ever moved on to sticks and bricks. --Rob Lightner

Review

Using plastered straw bales as building materials for a home may not sound stable or long-lasting, but these can be used for a variety of purposes from adjacent buildings to entire houses, can be used with relatively little experience, and have many attributes; from super-insulation to cheap construction. Applications are more useful for the Southwest region but ideas may transfer to other U. S. locales. The book's price tag seems high for a paperback, but this goes in great detail on a subject which is fairly understated in most construction or homeowner's guides. -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea Green; 1 edition (December 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930031717
• ISBN-13: 978-0930031718
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I read this book and now I live in a SB house., March 2, 1999

By 

Leon Ghougasian ([e-mail] (Glenville, Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Straw Bale House (A Real Goods Independent Living Book) (Paperback)

This book was directly responsible for our decision, two years ago, to build the straw house featured in the photo album. My wife, daughter (9mos.) and I are now living in the 3,600 sq ft home that cost @ $20/sq ft to build. That includes radient floor heat, high quality windows and a 1000 sq ft great room with a 15' high cathedral ceiling. Most of the labor was done by myself, friends and family. If you are considering building with straw, buy THE book and go to Arizona to take a workshop given by the authors. Both are well worth the money.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful. Describes possibilities for varying situations., September 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Straw Bale House (A Real Goods Independent Living Book) (Paperback)

The Straw Bale House is not a "how to" although it gives enough detailed info that it could be used that way. There is an excellent balance between environmental concerns, and human habitational needs. It doesn't fall into the guilt inducing that Build It With Bales does, ie that construction of human dwellings is destruction of of nature and should always be kept to the bare minimum. The straw bale House seeks to encourage non-builders to give building their own homes a reasonable try, and takes into account many possible variables such as materials availability, costs, skill level required, code requirements. Excellent book. I loved the short section on life-cycle cost comparisons between owner-built straw homes and contractor built framed homes. The author is so right when he or she says that we want that savings for our children's children.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great place to start., March 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Straw Bale House (A Real Goods Independent Living Book) (Paperback)

For someone who knew nothing about straw bale construction this book was not only informative, but also inspiring. The Straw Bale House contains a lot of good information about the specifics of straw bale construction. I found that because it covered information about straw bale construction from start to finish it couldn't go into as much detail about any one aspect as much as I would have liked. However, my feeling is that this book was designed to get you interested and then send you out to gather the more specific information for yourself. It has proven effective at inspiring me.