A Look Inside the Strawbale Walls of this Off-grid Home
Last Updated: Feb 3, 2025Anke and Roberto are proud of their new home in Scotch Village, Nova Scotia, which was built on a breathtaking piece of land a short distance from the city of Halifax. They've also planted fruit trees, grains, and a large vegetable garden to supply their catering business, Conscious Catering. They used timber frame construction with straw bale wall insulation and powered it with off-grid solar power.
Table of Contents
- Details
- Why We Love it
The home was designed by Michael Barton with a great deal of input from Robbie and Anke. Michael tailored their building systems to ensure adherence to local building codes.
If we go away on a sunny weekend in winter, of course, the wood stove is off, but still, we will typically come home to a +20°C house. We once went away for ten days in February and still returned to a +12°C house! This house is designed, so it will not freeze.
How about that? A house so well insulated that you don't need to worry about freezing pipes! A major bonus in a cold winter climate.
The rough-cut lumber for the house was sourced from a local sawmill, and some beautiful posts were sourced on the building site. To insulate their home, they used 18-inch thick straw bales from a neighboring farm. The straw alone provides an insulation value between R-25 and R-40.
Because straw bales are not a standardized building product, they needed Michael, their engineer, to prove that this thickness of straw satisfies building code requirements. On Michael's recommendation, they also took extra care to air seal around joints with acoustical sealant and tar paper to stop any drafts. Straw bales settle for the first few weeks, so they delayed interior finishing until after settling.
Strawbale walls give a comforting feeling of shelter because they are so thick. This makes the window sills spacious and the window wells very deep. To allow sunlight in through the deep window wells, they rounded the corners.
Why We Love it
- Passive solar heating
- Use of locally sourced building products
- Strawbale insulation
- Natural clay plaster wall finish
- Off-grid solar photovoltaic power
Dane George
Dane George holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and a Masters of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from Dalhousie University. He has three years of experience working with residential contractors with a focus on energy efficient renovations, and has worked with the Clean Foundation as a Certified Energy Advisor conducting energy audits of homes. Most recently, his graduate research involved analyzing electricity consumption patterns. Dane has also prepared and delivered workshops on home energy sustainability, and is currently teaching Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
