Hi All,

I am staring to look at the possibility of building on a field that I own. The field itself is 2.75 acres and there are buildings either side of it. It is in my local small town on the west coast of Wales.
Anyway, I would like to build if possible and have been looking at different systems.
I am very tempted to have a look at starw bale construction as they seem fairly cheap if you labour yourself and very well insulated.
I just wonder what the main issues are as they are very rare in the UK and how do planners view applications generally. From what I can find thet seem to turn most applications down.
I have also looked quickly at Modcell in Bristol and you can actually get a mortgage against their bale system now.
Please give your thoughts as this may be a terrible idea to some but great idea to others.
Thanks in advance.

Posted By: gustyturbine
I just wonder what the main issues are as they are very rare in the UK and how do planners view applications generally. From what I can find thet seem to turn most applications down.

IIRC Lincolnshire CC built some themselves?

Quick search. Turned out it was North Kesteven DC (Kesteven is a sub-division of Lincolnshire):

https://naturalbuild.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/straw-bale-council-house-lincolnshire/

The planning issues won't be concerned with whether it's built from straw bales. In our case it was brought up as a feature during the planning process - "it's 'eco', built from straw bales you know". Not by us but by the councillors and planners to convince themselves to give us permission. We did use the construction method to argue for why it was the shape it is rather than the chocolate box pastiche that their style guide suggests.

Planning issues will just be general ones like is it in a development area, is the development density at the right scale for the area in accordance with government rules and so forth.

I believe you can get mortgages from Ecological Building Society for straw bale houses, though I think at the moment you have to go for passivhaus certification as well.

I don't like the Modcell system personally. Ours was designed with a structure a lot like the North Kesteven ones but tweaked a bit to meet the passivhaus goal (foundation and roof structures and window details come to mind as examples). I think there are some details from North Kesteven among those on Barbara's site - http://www.strawworks.co.uk/technical/

Some people have built cheaply but I wouldn't plan on it. The bales themselves are reasonably cheap but things like lime render aren't. Another big expense can be scaffolding. You have to keep the site dry for a long time, and a full scaffold with tin roof costs folding money. There are other ways but you need to weigh up the practicalities and risks. If I wanted to build cheaply I'd probably look at more conventional techniques. Block and EWI, deep timber frame etc.

Edit: if you're looking for factory fab then it may be worth looking at http://www.eco-fab.co.uk/