Green building material for your green remodeling project. If you live in the country and your looking to insulate an existing shed are barn try using straw bales. Most people would have second thought about remodeling your house with straw walls. So start with a room in your barn, that you would like to heat. I your goal is to go with green building materials straw is a great renewable resource.
The stray bale can be built into structural wall with adding any extra wood framing. You just stack the bales and pin them in place. Cover the whole wall with a wire mesh then cover the mesh with stucco. The stucco holds everything in place plus its weather tight and sturdy.
If you buy the straw at a near by farm you will have a very low carbon foot print. I doesn’t even matter what type of straw you buy. Wheat, oat, rye and barley will all work fine. The insulation valve is around a R-28. As an comparison a standard wall has an R Factor of R-13 to R19.
So next time you want to remodel and use green building materials look into using straw.
