Instructing the course was Frank Thomas from Jervis Bay, a leading proponent of this construction method that uses simple straw bales to build energy-efficient houses that have a low impact on the environment, during construction and for the life of the building. 

“The idea behind the workshop is to get like-minded people together who have strawbale construction in mind and to see if some hands-on experience gives them the confidence to build their own home,” Mr Thomas said.

About 20 people travelled to Bodalla to work on the wall-raising project organised by Mr Thomas, which saw the walls made of straw bales completed over the week. Those walls are then covered with an attractive lime render. 

The house belongs to Bodalla locals Des and Angela McClelland, who volunteered it for the workshop project, getting the benefit of free labour from the participants.

Mr Thomas said straw bales both stored carbon and also had one of the highest insulation ratings of R-Value 10, so good any man-made alternative would be too expensive to recreate.

Houses could be made even more energy-efficient if straw bales were used in the ceilings and he was in the process of getting his construction method approved by the International Passive House Association. A house with straw bales walls and ceilings should require no heating or cooling at all, he said.

Mr Thomas is a carpenter and builder by trade and became interested in alternative and environmental construction methods in his native Germany. This peaked with his participation in a large solar-active/ passive mud brick research project in Delhi, India during 1989/1990 undertaken by University of Kassel, Germany’s Department for Experimental Building Technologies, in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Technology.

Strawbale construction was very widely used and accepted in Europe, and this was becoming the case in Australia, he said. The biggest strawbale building he knows about is an eight-storey building in France, whose energy costs are only 25 Euros per household.

Through his company Strawtec, he has been involved in more than 300 homes and buildings that use strawbale construction and expects to see more popping up around Far South Coast NSW and the rest of Australia.

“They can be placed everywhere and we will soon see that people with strawbale homes will be able to sell them for more money because of the energy efficiency,” Mr Thomas said.