It's a very healthy, renewable, natural product that's typically a waste material. It grows in a single season and is often burned after the grain is removed. Used for walls, straw can replace wood that is becoming more precious and expensive every day. It's also a green alternative for insulations that can have health risks. And, finally, as a finished building material, there won't even be a chance of allergies, because the bales will be totally encapsulated in natural, breathable plasters.
Durable and flexible, the greatest advantage of using straw bales is their insulating values. The state of California calls for a minimum R-13 value in new walls. An R rating is the measure of a material's resistance to thermal change. The higher the R-value of a material, the greater its insulating capability. A bale by itself has an R rating of 45, more than twice as insulating as the minimum R-13 value for California building code.
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