More Straw Bale Building. Peter Mack

       Introduction

       What to Expect from This Book

      The idea of straw bale building has certainly hit a nerve in our collective thinking. An almost forgotten building style that was only ever used briefly in a small prairie region of North America has, in the past 25 years, spread to become practiced almost everywhere. Tens of thousands of people worldwide have chosen this system to build their homes, often in the face of resistance from local authorities and to the raised eyebrows of family, friends, and neighbors.

      Straw bale building is certainly not the first alternative building style to be introduced and popularized, but its continuing growth and movement toward mainstream acceptance are unique among such alternatives. When we first started building with bales (nearly ten years ago!), it was a rare person indeed who knew what the heck we were talking about; today it is a rare person who hasn’t at least heard of the idea; many have seen it presented on television or in print or know somebody who has worked on one.

      Why this explosive growth? In part, it might be attributed to the media-friendly nature of the material — every journalist loves a Three Little Pigs headline! Almost every major newspaper and television network has by now covered straw bale building. But once the media novelty wears off, many people remain intrigued and fascinated with straw bale construction. Impressed by the high energy efficiency, the lowered environmental impact, and the beautiful simplicity of building with straw bales, many people have been willing to commit their time, effort, and money to building this way.

      Straw bale building now finds itself at an important crossroads. Unlike other“new”building systems, this one does not come from within the construction industry. The incredible growth in straw bale building has been fueled entirely by a grassroots desire to build more efficiently and effectively. This means there has been no central planning or designing, no industry-wide testing or standardization. And that has been a good thing. The vast amount of experimentation that has occurred provides us with numerous examples of methods that work and methods that do not work. This grassroots movement also requires that we continually learn from one another, so that important lessons are shared and the collective experience becomes collective knowledge.