The first little piggy had the right idea.

MARK Dearricott had worked for a decade as a bricklayer when he decided to help a friend with his straw bale construction business. “I thought it was pretty dodgy, building houses out of straw,” he admits. “But after the first few, I realised its potential was tremendous. It’s a brilliant material.”

Mr Dearricott now runs Professional Strawbale, and has built about 200 houses across Victoria. He’s flat out with projects and inquiries, often for the suburbs. “It’s a very versatile material. It suits any design, from a cute little cottage to a super-straight, ultra-modern house.”

He says a professionally built straw bale dwelling costs about 15 per cent more than standard brick-veneer, but makes for a much more comfortable home, with exceptional insulation and sound proofing.

Construction techniques vary: straw bales can be used in load bearing walls or as in-fill for a timber frame. In both cases, the bales are laid like giant bricks and then sealed with lime, cement or earthen render.

Mr Dearricott favours conventional post-and-beam frames for ease of construction and compliance with council regulations. He warns that while regional councils are now accustomed to straw bale homes, the planning process may not be so smooth with inner-city councils.

He says would-be clients have three main concerns: mice, water and fire. The render, usually about five centimetres thick, protects the bales against all three. “The straw is completely sealed,” he says. “Everything is rendered, including the tops of the walls.”

Nevertheless, it’s wise to include well-designed eaves to shelter the walls from the prevailing weather – they’re a must if you use earthen render.

Surprisingly, the bales don’t present an added bushfire risk. CSIRO testing, conducted in 2002, found that rendered bales are non-combustible under bushfire conditions. “The straw is compacted tightly and it won’t burn because there isn’t enough oxygen flow,” Mr Dearricott says.

Chris Rule and his family built their straw bale home near Bendigo five years ago. Mr Rule, a cartoonist and writer, has since designed and built another straw bale house and recently became a registered builder. “Straw bale enticed me into it,” he says. “It looks beautiful and its possibilities are so interesting.”

One of those possibilities is for householders to do some of the construction, and save on their costs. On a recent project, the owner and his friends spent a day laying the bales. “They had a lovely time learning how to do it,” Mr Rule says. “There was a real picnic atmosphere and they were building a house. It’s very low-tech, forgiving and fixable, so you can be involved. In the housing industry, people generally don’t get involved.”

He acknowledges that although the insulation provided by the bales is excellent, it’s just one part of good solar passive design. “If the house gets sun at the wrong time of the year and you haven’t designed your windows well, a straw bale home can shocking because the heat stays inside.”

As a building material, bales have many pluses. Straw is a waste product, often burned at season’s end; using it in construction stores carbon. It’s also renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic. When it’s sourced locally, Mr Rule says, it has very low embodied energy. “We got our straw from 2 kilometres down the road, opposite our family farm.”

For more information, see the Australasian Straw Bale Building Association, and Your Home’s straw bale fact sheet.

Compact homes take less and give more.

WHEN Edward Vinas and his family began planning their new home in East Brighton, they thought they’d go big. “It was probably because everyone else was building big places,” he says. “In our area, there are so many new houses and they’re built almost fence to fence.”

They visited volume builders, but it wasn’t long before they realised a large home would mean wasted space. “We’re a small family – my wife, myself and our son. When we thought out what we needed and why we needed it, a small house suited us better,” he says.

Zen Architects designed the family a two-bedroom home, with a convertible third bedroom and a study. It measures 140 square metres, including the outdoor decking. “It’s the perfect size for us. It feels spacious and we’ve got enough room to entertain both inside and outside,” Mr Vinas says.

The cost savings due to the modest size allowed for design and sustainability features they couldn’t otherwise have afforded, such as a reed-bed and sand filtration system that treats all greywater onsite.

“We don’t feel as though we’ve lost anything,” he says. “We feel like we’ve gained spare time. We didn’t want to be slaves to the home for its cleaning and maintenance. We’ve got better things to do.”

If house size is a guide, Australia is becoming a nation of constant cleaners. Research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last year showed that our new houses are the largest in the world. The average floor area of new free-standing dwellings is 245 square metres. Meanwhile, through the decades, our households are comprised of fewer and fewer people.

Sustainability consultant Malcolm Wilkie says house size isn’t just a matter of lifestyle, but also ethics. Larger homes require more materials, more appliances and more stuff to fill the space, as well as more energy for heating and cooling. Inevitably, extra bathrooms mean higher water consumption.

“To sustain human life on the planet we have to conserve our resources and use only what we need,” he says. “We’re beyond the point where we can just say, ‘I earned it, so I can spend it.’ There’s a moral obligation to the next generations.”

Mr Wilkie argues that choosing a humble abode doesn’t mean sacrificing quality of life. With thoughtful, elegant design – and consideration of what really makes a house a home – a compact residence can improve your day-to-day existence. “A good way to think about it is, ‘What makes the building sing?’ I think a small house, with the right-sized spaces in it, is a nicer house to live in. If it’s too big, you lose the heart.”

In the US, the ‘small house movement’ is setting out to counterbalance oversized dwellings. The trend is founded on affordability, sustainability and simplicity, and a belief that larger lives are lived in littler spaces. The Small House Society, founded in 2002, acknowledges that ‘small’ is relative to occupancy and needs. Its supporters own homes ranging from just a dozen square metres, up to hundreds. Jay Shafer, author of The Small House Book, lived in only eight square metres.

“That’s going to the extreme to demonstrate what’s possible,” Mr Wilkie says. “They can do a lot with that living area – people start to get really clever when they’re tight for space.”

Contact Malcolm Wilkie.

Insulation works all around the house.

CEILING insulation is taking a lot of political heat this year. But while the federal government admits its rebate scheme was flawed, the insulation itself shouldn’t be left in the cold.

Caitlin McGee, from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney, says good insulation is always a crucial part of construction. “It has many benefits: greenhouse gas reduction, better comfort and lower energy bills.”

And the ceiling isn’t the only spot for it. “The roof cavity is the most important place, but if you want to insulate well, you need to think about the walls and floors, and the building shell as a whole,” she says.

If you’re building your house, get the wall insulation right first time – it can be difficult and expensive to add later. According to Ms McGee, in existing homes, the best opportunity to retrofit is “when you’re renovating or pulling apart your walls for some other reason.” In all cases, it’s wise to consult a building sustainability assessor for detailed advice.

Because heat transfers in different ways, a combination of both reflective (foil) and bulk insulation (such as batts) works best. When you’re choosing a product, consider its green credentials, such as recycled content, as well as its performance, measured by the R-value.

In Melbourne, the building code requires that walls rate a minimum of R2.2. “Generally, the more extreme the climate, the more insulation you should have,” Ms McGee says. But she warns DIYers not to buy overly fat batts that must be squashed to fit. Bulk insulation works by trapping air; it’s less effective when compressed.

Another retrofitting alternative is to add the insulation outside. On her home, Ms McGee affixed polystyrene and cement panels to the external walls. “The material I used as my cladding is also part of my insulation strategy,” she says. “It’s worthwhile thinking about less conventional materials that have good insulating properties.”

Underfloor insulation is more straightforward, so long as there’s enough access space. Maurice Beinat, from home retrofitting business ecoMaster, says you need about 400 millimetres to work in.

Although floors cause less heat loss than ceilings and walls, insulating them can make a big difference to winter comfort. “The special thing about floors, particularly polished timber, is the contact your feet make with them,” he says. “Floors don’t need to be very cold to make you uncomfortable.”

He suggests that well-insulated floors should reach R2.5. (Uninsulated timber floors rate R0.7, and with good-quality carpet and underlay, they rate R1.)

Mr Beinat says there are two requirements for floor insulation: that it doesn’t hold moisture and won’t become a rat nest. For those reasons, he recommends polyester insulation (manufactured in a roll, rather than a batt, for convenience). Before stapling it in place, seal any gaps in the flooring.

In homes that have a lot of underfloor airflow, such as weatherboards, ecoMaster also fastens a layer of reflective insulation to the joists, making the sub-floor nearly air tight. They charge between $28 and $35 per metre, installed.

Mr Beinat says it’s a job well suited to DIYers, but with one serious warning: “The main danger is electrocution by stapling through wires. People do die underfloor.” He advises purchasing a double-insulated, electric stapler, rather than cheaper handheld models that won’t protect against electrocution.