A strawbale building can be anything you want it to be as long as you want it to be the best home, office, school, retail space possible. Not only is strawbale construction a practical, cost effective means of building ‘green,’ but is also an efficient and versatile material for many and varied applications.

Unlike many other “alternative” building materials the main limiting factor in the way a strawbale building looks is in the competence of the strawbale sub-contractor. Strawbale walls can be organic, rustic and hand-made, or precise, neat, flat and ultra modern. The choice is up to you.

The render on a strawbale building is the “make-or-break” factor, so to ensure the success of your project you need to choose a strawbale sub-contractor who knows how to deliver the level of finish you require.
It is also important to know that the strawbale renderers know and understand the wide variety of materials used in the rendering process. Renders can be cement, lime, earthen or acrylic, and can be used in a wide range of ways.

The most critical factor in choosing a strawbale operator is knowing that they can work in with any competent builder and all the other trades involved in building your project, the plasterers, plumbers, electricians, tilers and so on. If the other trades on your project know for sure that the finish of the render suits their job, it will be cheaper, faster and result in a far more beautiful and successful building.

Building in strawbale has to become simpler, less mysterious, no longer a material for the elite or super-practical, but a material for the masses, understandable and achievable.

Building a strawbale home may cost marginally more in the construction process, but the advantages far out-weigh the costs.

In a report released in July 2005, (Balancing act; a triple bottom line analysis of the Australian economy) the CSIRO in conjunction with Sydney University stated that “direct energy use in the average Australian house produces 15 tonnes of greenhouse gas yearly and collectively generate 20% of Australia’s total greenhouse emissions. The relatively low voluntary uptake of advanced energy design standards to date will lead to increasing incentives, regulation and cross compliance measures. Schemes such as the recent ‘first home owners grant’ could be tied to state of the art designs that passively save energy and water”

Putting your building project in the forefront of sustainable building industry development is an exciting and rewarding prospect, made all the more attractive by the fabulous look and feel achievable with strawbale construction.

Many people looking into  various methods of sustainable building are concerned with the possible resale value of the home they intend to build thinking “I can handle living in a mudbrick/rammed earth/strawbale home, but when the time comes to sell, will it look good enough to sell at a realistic price?” According to Victorian Building Commission research from 2006, 79% of new building consumers had environmentally sustainable building practices in their procurement criteria, up from 75% in 2005. So home buyers desperately want to buy a ‘green’ home, and strawbale is going to be the material that delivers the look they want without compromising its ‘green’ credentials.