[dodedo]

anthonyb is saying that logs and stray bales are available in large quantities. And he's right, there's no issue of scale here, other than labor. I have family who have built straw houses and they're cheap, straw is very plentiful, and you really can't tell the difference from a traditional drywall/fiberglass insulation home (it wasn't stylized like this one).

The only thing I see being an issue with the house from the article is the composting toilet. However, running a sewer to this style of house is no different than running a sewer to a traditional house.

[latch]

It's more than just the building material. I live in a 65 story building..8 units per floor (I'm sure it thins out near the top though). How many people per sqft of land do you think we take? How much would be taken by free-standing (single) homes?

How much do you think we save in heating and cooling given that only 2 out of 4 walls are exposed (and in some apartments, it might be 1/4)?

If I wasn't tired, I'd look it up, but I have to imagine that apartment-style "dense" living, is way more sustainable than almost any type of house.

[onemoreact]

I have seen a few studies that suggest New York City is the most environmentally friendly place to live in the US. But, mostly it comes down to transportation costs. And being that close to a harbor is actually a huge net gain.

[dodedo]

It seems your issue is with the concept of single family homes and urban sprawl, not this particular method of building. That's a bit of a different issue -- many people don't want to live in the middle of a city (such as myself: I'm on a rather large lot in a 4 bedroom home)

It's true that high density housing is efficient, but if you are going to build a single family home, strawbale is a great way to do it.

[latch]

I don't mean to rant on you, but I do like having this conversation :)

I don't think limiting what we view as sustainable to only the things we want is being reasonable. Sure, there's degrees of sustainability, and we can talk about it in those terms. But, when I look at the world, I no longer believe that we are necessarily entitled to things that we want. Greeks, for example, would like to continue living well beyond their financial means. Should they be allowed to simply because they wish for it?

We have a good system to measure the financial cost of thing. So, at the very least, what you want is something you need to be able to afford (although that plays to the disadvantage of the truly poor). However, there are few checks in places for the social costs, and even fewer for the environmental cost.

So while you want to live in a big house, and you can afford it, do you have a greater social responsibility? Or, put differently (and possibility unfairly), what impact would it have if the considerable number of people who lived in such a dwelling moved to something more sustainable?

[freshhawk]

Actually it would be very different to run a sewer to this house than to a traditional house.

When you are piping large amounts of raw sewage around you need strict rules to protect people, property and the environment. So now you need to get it up to code, and pay trained people to check that it complies.

Straw is a promising material but I think we've already tried harvesting logs in "large quantities" and it hasn't worked out perfectly.

[dodedo]

As I said, I have people in my family who have built strawbale houses to code (California code including earthquake provisions, no less). The stylized aspect is distinct from the strawbale and inset-in-land aspect.

Regarding logs, I'm currently sitting in a house with wood framing in the suburbs, and every house around me as far as I can see is also framed with wood.

[freshhawk]

Oh yeah, nothing particularily hard about building strawbale houses to code.

My point was about this particular style of amateur building not being amenable to things that require standards.

[ars]

The framing is designed to minimize the use of wood, while this house uses extravagant quantities of it.

[ryduh]

Would you be willing to post information about the strawbale houses that were built to code? Where can I find more information on that?

[dodedo]

I'm not too close with that side of the family, all I know is what I've gleaned during some extended visits. However, this looks like it might be a good starting point: http://www.strawbuilding.org/sbweb/content/strawbale-codes

Strawbale houses do not look significantly different from normal wood-frame, drywall and stucco homes. If I hadn't been told I would not have known.