[HiTech RedNeck]

Straw! Good grief. Forget about mold, it sounds like a supreme fire hazard. If it didn't mold it would undergo spontaneous combustion some day.

[xm177e2]

Isn't this exactly what the enviros want? Biodegradeable is good, right?

[chance33_98]

And people make fun of the good folks from West Virginny and CanTucky. Damn Northern folk ain't got a lick of sense.

[Paul C. Jesup]

"I spent a whole year on this house and I didn't make anything on it," he said. "It really hurts me to know it's demolished"

This guy is not only a eco-nut/idiot, but he is also questionably guilty of defrauding people, a $91.000 house should take no more (barring weather) than 3 months to build and this guy took everyone for a ride for a year to the atune of $109,000 grand more than it should of cost(around $200,000 total).

I personally know housing contractors and how they do their work, so I know what I am talking about and this guy could be brought up on charges.

[sit-rep]

Straw insulation... and a building department let it go? They should be responsible for this.

Years ago, I drove a big truck for a living. One day I was driving through Kentucky, I got on the CB radio and asked my fellow truckers, I siad "Hey gents, you see those big rolls of hay out there in the fields the livestock feeds on over the winter, why don't the rot in the center as a pile of grass does?

Their answer came quite quickly and many answered..."If it is rolled nice and tight driver, this prevents mold and mildew." Because of how quick the many answered, I would have thought that this would be a basic concept on anything "hay".

SR

[chuknospam]

The big story here is how a gov't subsidised project with volunteer labor cost $200,000 for a end product and the end product was defective. It would have cost $95,000 to $125,000 had it been done by the private sector firm by someone who had worked the bugs out & was specialized in that form of construction.

[Prodigal Son]

She was a graduate of Southside's homebuyer education program.

Hmmm...

[Between the Lines]

She's building a home from straw bale?!?!
Her family gasped and turned pale.
It didn't work for the pigs,
Would you rather try twigs?
But she stuck with the straw though it failed.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Notice all the public money involved in this?

[F-117A]

Just remember, this house is symbolic of what these volk and their ilk are doing to our country!

[SamAdams76]

Straw is for barns. This is the way to insulate a house...

[Miles Bennel]

[Paleo Conservative]

All that's left is her mortgage and a junk-strewn vacant lot. She still owes at least $60,000.

Well that ought to discourage others. What bank would want to finance such a monstrosity.

[Copernicus]

This is a real shame. There are 10,000 innovative ways to build houses faster, better, cheaper and more efficiently.

9,990 are banned by either the so-called "Uniform Building Code" or various zoning ordinances or other inane environmental or legislated mandates.

The remaining ten options are the domain of some of the nuttiest, fruitest elements of society who also happen to somehow gain access to bottomless pools of public money.

Their misbegotten efforts give all innovative construction a bad name.

Straw, as a building material, for example, is not an unsound choice. The English Thatched Roof,for example, can last as long or longer than some contemporary choices-asphalt shingles or even some variations of standing seam metal roofs.

Unfortunately, what the envirowhackos don't seem to realize is there is as much skill,experience and training required to assemble a proper thatched roof as is required for a conventional "high tech" roof.

Once again, government is the impediment, not the solution.

Best regards,

[capt. norm]

They obviously forgot the painful lesson of "The Three Little Pigs"

I guess they thought it was just some silly fairy tale.

[Willie Green]

All that's left is her mortgage and a junk-strewn vacant lot. She still owes at least $60,000.

What's really amazing is that the bank was willing to approve a mortgage on a compost heap.

[tictoc]

Half-timbered house, wood-frame construction. Wall fillings are a mixture of straw, clay and willow branches. Built in 1321.

Why has this one lasted so long? Possibly because the straw was never exposed to weather; clay is an excellent regulator of humidity. I am not an expert. Apparently, though, clay and straw can be very good building materíals when you know what you are doing.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Still owes sixty thousand-hey! that ain't hay.

[ninenot]

The owner was screwed by the Greenies and their Gummint pals. She ought to sue for the $60K balance AND for damages.

It's odd, isn't it, that they TAUGHT her what to buy, TALKED her into buying it, DESIGNED it, BUILT it, and then, when it failed, THEY are holding HER responsible for the $60K.