Tina Therrien is a partner in Camel’s Back Construction, a Canadian straw bale pioneer with over 60 straw bale residences, studios and other assorted buildings to its credit. The company is committed to constructing sustainable buildings and to reducing the negative impact of its building practices.
NL: Other than the community aspect, what do you see as the advantages of straw bale construction?
Tina: With rising energy costs, those people living in conventional, on-grid homes are really looking for ways to reduce their overall operating costs. Of course, with walls of R-40 (about double the insulation of standard homes) there are tremendous energy savings to be had both in summer and winter in a properly designed passive-solar straw bale house. And for folks who decide to take the leap to build an off-grid straw bale home, well, they definitely benefit from the insulation factor. But there are many other benefits. Straw bale construction allows for more creative design, in that you are already working with a malleable and quite adaptable building material. Straw bale homes are unique, they feel good (no, really, I’m not just saying that…you have to visit a straw home to appreciate how it feels inside) and they offer excellent sound insulation. Some people are touting straw bale homes as “healthy homes” if they are finished and furnished with non-toxic materials.
NL: Would you describe straw bale construction as high-tech or low-tech?
Tina: Hmmmm, that’s kind of a tricky question. Straw bale construction, while being a specialized form of building, is also quite an accessible form of building, in that you don’t have to have advanced math skills and years of training that other trades might require. (I’m speaking strictly of the straw bale portion of the house here; if you choose to build an entire home, then the skills you require are quite different.) We have had participation from 10-year-olds to 84-year-olds, men and women alike, and at one jobsite we even had a volunteer in a wheelchair help with the stitching portion of the job. Now that is exciting! It is empowering for people to get back to their roots and participate in real projects, not unlike what we would have all been doing had we lived 200 years ago in Canada. However, there is a danger in considering straw bale construction really low tech, in that without proper instruction, guidance or skills, the detailing of a straw bale building can potentially fail.
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