Cheap, highly insulating and sustainable, straw has a lot of potential for the building industry.

This didn’t seem quite serious enough for UK, but it’s kinda neat.
Big Bad Wolf could not be reached for comment.

And as Insulation seems to have become my Special Interest at the moment, I dug into the material a little more.
It’s supposed to be installed 400mm thick.
It has a transmission value of 0.12WMK. So 400mm on the outside of the house is equivalent to…150mm of glassfibre or 75mm of cellotex.

As it’s vapor permeable, it shouldn’t have any of the damp issues poorly installed insulation suffers from.

So, if you can get away with the look, and have the space outside, it’s a pretty cool (/warm) material.

    • Treevan 🇦🇺@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      https://blog.csiro.au/straw-house-1-fire-0/

      So how did it fair? The external temperature reached a scorching 1000oC while inside the house was a cool 35oC. There was minimal damage to the straw house’s cladding and while the steel frame heated up to 100–110oC it remained structurally sound and intact. Attached to the house was a about 70–odd sensors that measured what was happening inside and outside the building, so there are plenty more results to be analysed. For now, we know that when exposed to extreme bushfire conditions the little house that could, stood.

    • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      It’s apparently 120 minute fire rated. On the outside of a building, that’s a fair amount (and certainly better than PIR board, see Grenfell!)
      We rate materials and construction by how long it takes to burn, and that time is generally a reasonable amount of time to get out of the building. For example, a domestic ceiling needs to withstand for 30 minutes.

      My own experiments with Stieco found it was very hard to actually set alight on a bonfire. I’m not sure how straw fares, but the woodfibre based board tended to char and prevent further spread. (Until it reaches a flashpoint, I guess)