The University of Bath has a new concept home. One that is made from an easily renewable resource. It more than passed the safety standards for a home exposed to fire, and as for winds, it wouldn’t be easy to blow this house down. Surprise, it is made of straw.

The straw is packed tightly into prefabricated rectangular wood frames. The frames are then lime rendered, dried and then slotted together forming a panel called a ModCel. So while the ModCel is the main construction material of the concept home, it looks like any other home from the outside and the inside. No straw is visible.

The Bale Haus, a play on the phrase "straw bale", was built on the Bath Campus. The Director of the University of Bath’s BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, Professor Peter Walker pointed out the benefits of straw are "its cheap, widely available and a good insulator. It’s been used in building houses for hundreds of years."

Straw is the by product of grain harvesting. It is the stalk that is left behind. While the cost of straw is low, currently a home made of the straw ModCel is not. When a new construction material is developed the cost is higher in the beginning. Production costs are not streamlined and there are the initial development and research testing costs to cover.

The straw home does look promising in research testing. In a "burn test" a home is subjected to flames to see if it can withhold from burning for at least 30 minutes, the time it would take a family to escape. The ModCel when subjected to flames lasted beyond the 30 minutes.

Dr. Katherine Beadle, who has been testing the Bale Haus for 18 months, tried burning it, rotting it, and blowing it down.

In reference to the burning test Dr. Beadle stated: "You always want a bit of drama, but we didn’t get it!"

It took 1.5 hours in contact with 1000C flames before the lime render began to drop off. Due to the compact nature of the straw "it suffered more charring than actual disintegration", said Dr. Beadle. They continued the burn experiment for another 45 minutes. The ModCel out performed building regulation requirements.

The use of hydraulic jacks replicated strong winds. The ModCel panels moved a few millimeters, but stayed with what the Bale Haus team’s computer modeling had predicted in pre-construction.

Another benefit of straw is that it is a natural carbon magnet meaning that it would absorb a home’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course the insulation benefit would help cut energy costs, another nice feature of a ModCel home. The next step in the Bale Haus project is to test the insulation properties. The researchers want to discover how the ModCel retains heat. They plan on allowing the home to be lived in to test how it contains heat emitted from appliances and other sources, even the heat from human bodies. This testing will confirm it’s energy saving capabilities.

A house that is earth friendly, saves energy, is made from an industry byproduct and easily renewable resource, can outperform industry standards on burning, and neither the big bad wolf nor the wind can blow it down, looks like a promising concept.

Whether your home is made of straw, sticks, or bricks, a remortgage could offer you savings on paid interest rates or cash for remodeling. Consider a remortgage and get a free quote today!