Straw houses and other uses for straw

Autumn '93 sees the start of the government ban on straw burning. Farmers are looking for other options, besides ploughing the straw back into the soil, which is expensive and can be difficult in clay-based soils.

In the States, houses made from straw are being built. First a wooden post and beam framework is erected. Then the house wall cavities are filled with tightly bound bales of straw, pinned together with steel rods. Next, stucco netting, a type of chicken wire, is put around the straw bales. Finally they are covered with stucco on the outside and plaster on the inside.

Straw houses are easier to build, are far cheaper than other homes, and are cool in summer, warm in winter. Matts Myhrman, who has started his own staw house construction company called Out on Bale, tells one story of old-timers 'continuing playing cards, blissfully unaware that a tornado was blowing by their front door. That's how good the insulation is.' Nebraskan settlers, short of timber, were the first to build houses out of straw - and many of their homes are still standing a century later.

In the UK Arthus Staniforth has published a report on other uses for straw: