See photos from a recent straw building workshop Max helped with near Monterey, CA

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Are strawbale homes more expensive?

No. They cost roughly the same to build and are actually 75% cheaper to heat in the winter and are much cooler in the summer. Chinese villagers actually prefer this construction method even without subsidies. The economic constraint is in training of local builders and supply of straw baling equipment.

• Wind: While strawbales can be used for load-bearing walls, this is technically more complex and ADRA prefers to design buildings with red brick load-bearing components, filled in with straw bales. They are as structurally sound as other building technologies and actually much more resistant to earthquake damage.
• Fire: The strawbale cores of walls are covered with a thick (2in) plaster – this is on both the inner and outerwalls. This makes the homes resistant to both fire and weather.
  
• Rodents: Straw is simply the stalks of rice, wheat and other crops. It is cellulose and provides no nutritional value so rodents aren’t attracted to it. They won’t make their homes in it either if walls are properly maintained (as with any home).
  
• Mold: Mold can be an issue in damp environments but strawbale construction is particularly well-suited for dry environments with extreme temperature ranges. This is the case in Heilongjiang which has bitterly cold winters and rather hot summers.
  

1. Clay bricks harm the environment but are widely used in rural construction. Brick production consumes large amounts of energy, destroys land and causes severe air pollution. For these reasons, brick production has been banned in many districts, but cheap alternatives are not widely known.
   
2. Rural homes are not energy efficient. Poorly insulated homes require residents to burn a lot of coal which is a drain on household resources and a source of local pollution and the global rise in CO2.
   
3. Rural housing is unsafe during earthquakes.

A typical rural brick house is 60-70 m2 in area. 25,000 bricks are needed to build one brick house whereas a strawbale home only reqires 7,000 bricks (for load-bearing portions) if the partition walls are constructed with other non-brick materials. This is a savings of 18,000 bricks (25,000 - 7,000 = 18,000). Since 1 ton contains roughly 400 bricks, the savings is roughly 45 tons (18,000 / 400 = 45).

Since it takes roughly 1 ton of coal to produce 17 tons of bricks,it takes about 2.7 tons less coal to build a strawbale home (45 / 17 = 2.7). Burning 1 ton of coal emits 1.8 tons of CO2-equivalent greehouse gas emissions. Therefore, constructing a strawbale home will reduce typical construction material-related emissions by 4.9 tons (2.7 x 1.8 = 4.9).

Every winter, a typical rural home in Heilongjiang burns 4 tons of coal for heating; however, a strawbale home only requires 1 ton to heat, saving 3 tons annually and representing an annual reduction in greenhouse emissions of 5.4 tons (4 - 1 = 3 x 1.8 = 5.4). ADRA asserts their strawbale homes will last at least 80 years - if we assume a conservative estimate of only 60 years then a single strawbale home represents a lifetime greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 329 tons (4.9 + (5.4 x 60) = 329 tons).

In 2007, the price of coal was $53-$67/ton so a savings of 3 tons would equate to an annual savings of $159-$201 ($53-$67 x 3 = $159-$201). In 2007, the average annual income for a family in rural china was 4,140RMB ($572) so these energy savings is quite significant and is the major reason that rural Chinese prefer strawbale homes over the brick alternative.

Over the course of the 2-year project ending in late 2009, at least 250 straw bale homes will be built.  This equates to a CO2 reduction of over 80,000 tons (329 x 250 = 82,225).  And this calculation is assuming the 200 newly trained professionals never use . The entire 2-year project costs about $80,000 so this averages a return of 1 ton of CO2 reduction per $1 spent.

ADRA China is the kind of environmental operation you want to support – they are locally managed and efficient.  ADRA funds focus on training locals so their efforts will last for years to come.  This project will not only prevent CO2 emissions at $1 per ton, but also will create 200 “green collar” jobs and raise the environmental awareness of thousands of rural Chinese.

Americans average 22 tons of CO2 emissions annually - go climate neutral by donating $22 today! Offset the whole family and train one professional for $100.

1. Policy: Heilongjiang government officials have had the keenest interest in disseminating this type of green building technology. Recently, Heilongjiang’s Provincial Construction Department approved more than US$250,000 to subsidize energy efficient rural housing including strawbale houses. In February 2008, the Heilongjiang provincial government issued a policy to subsidize the construction of new residential houses that replace substandard houses, including the construction of strawbale houses.
   
2. Climate: This province is home to China’s coldest winters and summers can also be quite warm. This region requires highly insulated buildings and insulative deficiencies are often made up by burning locally abundant, dirty coal.
   
3. Raw Materials: 80% of counties in Heilongjiang province have widely available straw, a waste product from local farms.
   

What are the project’s success measures?

ADRA’s project has 3 success measures within the project’s 2-year timeframe:

1. Hold 3 training sessions
2. Train 200 local building technicians
3. Build 250 strawbale homes
   

• Since 2005, the Heilongjiang’s provincial construction department has been asking ADRA to continue its work with them in spreading strawbale technology in the province.
  
• In July 2006, ADRA partnered with the provincial construction department to host an international study tour sponsored by the UK’s Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF). The tour included more than 20 building professionals from 15 countries.
  
• From May 2006 to February 2007, ADRA, in partnership with this department, developed a construction manual to serve as a standardized blueprint for rural strawbale houses in Heilongjiang province.
  
• ADRA continues to receive numerous invitations from this department to partner in further spreading strawbale construction technology. This department is in charge of the entire province’s rural construction and they have a subsidiary bureau in each county of Heilongjiang.
  

Where and when will trainings occur?

There are 65 counties and 13 municipalities in Heilongjiang province. The Rural Construction Bureau of Heilongjiang’s provincial construction department will be responsible for informing and inviting trainees from each construction bureau in the province. Each training session will train 70-100 technicians and foremen from rural construction teams. This training will build capacity in each county ready for government-initiated strawbale construction. Foremen from rural construction teams can then build houses for individual villagers.

Initial trainings are planned to occur in mid-April and June when the weather gets warmer and is fit for construction. Trainings will be held at three sites: Daqing City, Tangyuan County and Jixi City. Two sessions will be held in Daqing and Tangyuan in April and June 2008. The third session will be held in Jixi in November or December 2008 because by that time there will be houses constructed and ready to be toured.

The Heilongjiang Provincial Construction Department has designated the city of Daqing as a demonstration site for energy efficient housing technology and the department has built other types of energy efficient homes there as showcases. Daqing is located in the west of Heilongjiang province and is to the northwest of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province. It has convenient transportation access.

A training will last for two days, the first day will be classroom training and the second day will include site visits to strawbale houses. There are three strawbale houses built by individual farmers in Lindian, Dumeng, and Nengjiang counties. A site tour will be arranged after the training in Daqing to visit completed houses.

Tangyuan County is ADRA’s model demonstration site for strawbale housing project since 2000. It is located in the east of Heilongjiang province and has local trainers who can give trainings and share experiences about project management. Site tours will be provided if trainees are interested in visiting the completed houses.

What is the project schedule?

1. People: This project builds the capacity of local Chinese construction technicians and also provides equipment support for rural construction teams. The technology that ADRA is transferring is appropriate and acceptable to rural China because ADRA has integrated this technology into existing building systems that is easily replicated by local Chinese. The houses are designed by local craftspeople with the participation of the homeowners and are culturally appropriate. Women and men are both welcome to participate in the training. Normally more men are involved in the construction industry; however, there are a number of females joining this industry, especially in construction design. Efforts will be made to encourage as many females as possible to participate in the training.
   
2. Planet: The technology this project is transferring is an environmental friendly technology that utilizes a farming waste product (straw) to build energy efficient houses. Such houses require up to 75% less coal for heating, reducing large amount of greenhouse gas emissions (think: global warming) and other environmental pollutants including airborne mercury, SO2 (think: acid rain), and NOx (think: smog). In addition, fired clay bricks are reduced when straw bales are used further saving land and embodied energy (large amounts of coal are used to fire red bricks and petroleum is burned to transport the finished bricks).
   
3. Profit: ADRA’s first building program initiated a market demand and this demand will continue to expand as the provincial government subsidizes rural energy efficient construction. During the usable lifetime of the straw baling equipment subsidized by this project, construction teams will be able to achieve considerable profit margins since straw bale homes alone are priced competitively with business-as-usual brick construction. As long as coal prices continue to rise and construction costs remain competitive, building owners will continue to prefer straw bale homes and construction teams will continue to build them. It is hoped that demand for baling equipment will drive prices low enough to ignite growth in the straw bale construction market.