Materials for Durable and

Sustainable Construction
(CIVE401)

Straw Bale Construction

Dr. Luigi Di Sarno

Email: luigi.di-sarno@liverpool.ac.uk
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Monday 13th November 2023, is:

556388
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 Introduction
• Current challenges:
Straw Bale Construction
• Global warming;
• Increased energy costs;
• Population growth.

• We have a possible answer….

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 Straw Bale Construction

• What is it?

• How is it used?

• Why is it used?

• Should it be used?

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 Examples

http://www.strawbale.com/photo-gallery-favorite-images/

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Examples

Environmentally-friendly &
Affordable Houses

https://blog.allplan.com/en/straw-bale-house

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Examples
Sustainable Straw Bale School
in Malawi, Africa

https://www.dezeen.com/2019/05/07/straw
-malawi-school-nudes-architecture/

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 Typical details
• Straw bales 350 x 500 x 800 mm in size stacked to form walls
• Bales are typically covered with steel wire mesh to enhance
bond with plaster
• Bales are typically founded on and topped with timber wall
plates
• For ‘post and beam’ construction the timber frame provides
the structural support
• Straw bales act as insulating fill
• However, for load bearing construction, the plastered straw
bales provide all structural support!!

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 So what are the benefits?
• Walls have good insulation properties
• Totally renewable (knock down and rebuild)
• Available all over the world (straw that is!) (produced locally
saving transportation costs)
• The use of the bales discourages the disposal of the bales by
burning of the straw as per usual
• Very cheap to build (me or you could do it!!)
• Non-load and load bearing applications available

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 Key drawbacks!
• Unfamiliar construction technique – quality and robustness risk
• The bale widths mean walls are generally much thicker i.e.
more plan space is required for each plot
• The properties of the bales (especially width and density) can
be highly variable
• Highly susceptible to rot or moisture, costly protection may be
needed
• General lack of scientific data regarding
structural performance and durability

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 History
• First use (documented) by settlers in Nebraska due to a lack
of timber to build homes
• Settlers stacked bales of compressed straw to form walls,
covered with plaster and topped with roof
• Oldest existing bale building was constructed in 1903 and
abandoned in 1956 but is still standing!
• Rediscovered technology in 1980 and by 1990’s, a movement
of straw bale building spread from the American South-West
worldwide with the number of structures increasing each year.
• Most straw bale constructed buildings are for residential use

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The Burke Homestead

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Single Storey only?

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 Green Projects
• Most projects which involve straw bale construction have
other innovative features including:
• Solar panels
• Rain water harvesting
• Foul water treatment
• Radiant floor heating
• Natural lighting architecture

• No reliable figures on numbers of buildings, estimated at

around 1,000 to 2,000 worldwide.
• Lots in the US and Canada. Ontario Straw Bale Building
Coalition (OSBBC) maintains a database of straw bale
building in Canada.
http://www.osbbc.ca/

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 Construction Details
• Two main methods of wall assembly:
• Load-bearing (bales carry vertical and horizontal loading)
• Non load-bearing (infill panels) within a timber frame.

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 Bales
• Its not hay.....its straw!
• Straw is the cellulosic stem of a plant. Hay includes the stem
and grain. The high carbohydrate content of hay renders it very
susceptible to rot
• Two types of bale orientation:
• Flat (fibres orientated horizontally);
• Edge (fibres orientated vertically).

• Flat is best for insulation

• Edge is best for increased floor space and fewer bales are
used because of geometry of bale

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 Bales
• For load bearing applications pre-compression of the bale wall
is necessary in load bearing construction...Why?
• e.g. 2.4 m high wall could be
compressed by 100 mm.
• Typically achieved using ratchet straps
normally used in transportation.

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 Reinforcement
• Common practice is to fix a mesh to the surface of the bales
before plastering
• In seismically active zones, a steel mesh is used to improve
ductility of the wall under earthquake loading
• The mesh is normally fixed to the top and bottom timber wall
plates and then stitched to the surface of the bales
• No standards on the mesh!
• Builders like to avoid using the mesh (cost and fixings)
• More research needed to understand the mechanics of the
system

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Reinforcement

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 Plaster
• Four basic types of plaster are used which are:
• Earthen clay plasters
• Lime plasters
• Cement/lime plasters
• Gypsum plasters

• Typically applied in three coats, using a trowel or by hand or

by spraying
• The roughness of the wall surface along with methods of
application result in varying plaster thickness on the surface
• Variance in thickness can be 20 – 60 mm!!

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Plaster

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 Plaster
• Such variations in thickness will result in:
• Increase construction costs
• Varying fire resistance characteristics across the wall
• Water borne decay
• Increased wall weight

• How to control?
• Cutting the bale face using a band saw – care needed to
ensure the bale quality is not hindered during the cutting
process
• If variable wall thickness is to be expected then a minimum
thickness would need to be maintained

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 Performance of Assembly
• Knowledge regarding performance is increasing
• Testing and research is ongoing to address structural,
durability, and fire concerns and to quantify the thermal
performance of bale construction
• There are gaps in knowledge (see publication provided!)
• Papers and reports are available but most have not been
subjected to peer review or scrutiny
• This doesn't discredit their quality but lessens credibility when
compared to the copious amounts of research surrounding the
‘boring’ conventional materials!

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 So what do we know?
Plaster structural performance
• Various earth and lime/cement plasters have been tested
• Compressive strengths range from 0.23 MPa and 28 MPa
with earth plasters having the lowest strength
• Modulus of elasticity varies between 400 and 2500 MPa
• In the UK, natural hydraulic lime plasters are commonly used
for straw bale construction. Typical strengths range from 0.32
MPa to 1.4 MPa (at 28 days) and 0.42 MPa to 1.9 MPa (at
240 days)

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 So what do we know?
Individual bale structural performance
• Load deflection behaviour of unplastered straw bales
• Results suggest that the modulus of elasticity varies significantly from bale-to-
bale (composition variance) (Bou-Ali, 1993)
• Bale density had the greatest effect on strength and stiffness (Watts et al, 1995)

• Tests also performed on plastered bales (Vardy & McDougall, 2006)

• The effects of plaster thickness and strength on overall bale strength was
considered and plastered wheat bales orientated on flat and edge were
considered
• It was found that the strength of plastered bales orientated flat is 36% greater
than those orientated on edge

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 So what do we know?
Individual bale structural performance
• Tests also performed on plastered bales cont...
• The plaster thickness was shown to have a greater effect on the plastered bale
strength than the actual cube strength of the plaster
• Doubling the plaster thickness increased the average plastered bale strength by
65% whilst doubling the plaster strength increased the average plastered bale
strength by only 25%

• Such results can be used to guide design to obtain optimal

performance of walls
• Question is how representative was the testing of real
straw bale wall construction?

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 So what do we know?
Bale wall structural performance
• Out of plane bending tests on unplastered walls has found the
walls could withstand between 1 and 5kPa of pressure (Boi-Ali,
1993).
• Compressive strengths of plastered straw bale walls obtained
from research ≈ 20 kN/m to 90 kN/m
• A wide range of wall dimensions, plaster proportions,
thicknesses, reinforcement schemes and bale sizes were tested

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 So what do we know?
Thermal performance
• A primary benefit of straw bale construction is their purported
excellent insulation properties
• Heating and cooling requirements for a straw bale home are
significantly less than conventional timber-framed homes with
glass-fibre insulation
• Commonly cited property:
• U-value = 0.172 W/m² K

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 So what do we know?
Durability
• Excessive moisture can lead to rotting of the wall
• No vapour barrier (unconventional) as it does not allow
bonding of plaster to bale face
• Instead the plasters used are permeable enough to allow
vapour diffusion and allow bales to dry out
• Emphasis is placed on detail:
• Minimum roof overhang of 600 mm
• Isolating straw from foundation by installing vapour barriers between
foundation and bales – provision of flashing
• Ensuring bales are 200 to 300 mm above grade

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Some Useful References

http://www.modcell.com/

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 Case Study
The 4C’s Food Bank and Thrift Store
• Constructed in 2005 in Halliburton Ontario
• Built by students as part of a field course!!
• Building was designed to have a simple rectangular footprint
encompassing 170 m²
• Space was subdivided to separate rooms for thrift store retail,
food bank, a small office and sorting room and other smaller
rooms.
• Exterior walls were load-bearing

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Case Study

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 Case Study
The 4C’s Food Bank and Thrift Store
• Locally grown hemp bales were used for the straw in the
walls, while locally obtained clay/silt was used in the render
• All plaster and render was applied by hand with a minimum
thickness of 38 mm
• A structural engineer requested test data on the bails due to
the concern of heavy snow loads in that part of Canada
• A 2.44 m x 2.44 m specimen was testing and a maximum load
of 32 kN/m was obtained. The requirement was 23.5 kN/m
based on the engineers snow loading calculations

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 Case Study
The 4C’s Food Bank and Thrift Store
• In addition to the bales a number of other alternative and
environmentally sustainable construction materials and
techniques were adopted:
• Compressed straw interior walls (not timber stud framing)
• Infill interior walls utilising a variety of infill materials such as plastic
bottles and hempcrete
• Earth bag (sand bag) on rubble trench foundation
• 85% recycled paper content in roof insulation
• Finished earth floor
• Solar domestic hot water heating
• Fibreglass windows etc and more!!

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 Case Study
The 4C’s Food Bank and Thrift Store

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The Future of Straw Bale Construction
• Great strides made in the last 10 years in terms of an
increased understanding
• There are now numerous examples of successful construction
projects all over the globe and the method has entered
mainstream residential construction
• However, there are barriers!
• Lack of standards and building codes make it difficult to achieve
approval
• Belarus and Germany both have limited straw bale codes
• Code development is ongoing in the US
• Slow level of acceptance in the UK

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The Future of Straw Bale Construction
• In the US a permit to build normally involves having the design
reviewed by an engineer
• Problem is there is a lack of codes and design guidance for
reference
• So, engineers may required load testing which is:
• Time consuming
• Expensive
• Results are unique to building in question only due to the lack of
consistency

• Any research and developed design guidance would be

extremely useful moving forward....PhD anyone?

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The Future of Straw Bale Construction
Research and development desirables
• More experiments conducted under controlled conditions which
are repeatable in order to gain greater fundamental
understanding
• Once behaviour is known it must be translated into guidance for
design site built walls which contain imperfections (material and
geometrical)
• On from this the limit states can then be established and
appropriate safety factors derived

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Thanks for your attention

Any questions?

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