New Society Publishers Straw Bale Building Details: An Illustrated Guide for Design and Construction

I write the following review from my perspective of working in construction followed by a career in architectural design, and finally, building my own straw bale home, mostly alone. I wish to not take anything away from the many other good books out there on straw bale building. However, Straw Bale Building Details by CASBA stands out from the crowd in two major ways. First, instead of being authored by one, two, or even several people, this book had 40 contributors and 15 reviewers/evaluators all of which are consultants, contractors, builders, professional engineers, and architects. This provides a broad consensus from a variety of professionals, combining many years of experience. Additionally, much has been learned about straw bale design and construction over the years. The methods shown and talked about in this book are the most up-to-date at this moment, much of which is backed by scientific studies and modeling. Secondly, this book contains the entire section from the International Residential Code book on straw bale building. Knowing these codes is not only imperative when building in code enforced areas, they provide a sound reference point for those building where codes are not enforced. In other words, for peace of mind, a homeowner can provide this book to their builder and request that their home be built to the code standards within. This will ensure a far greater chance of the homeowner ending up with a problem free and long-lasting structure in their given locale. That said, not only did CASBA include the entire section on straw bale construction from the IRC, they added commentary within the written code to make it more understandable to the layman. While I would encourage anyone with an interest in straw bale construction to own, or at least read all of the many books available...this book is the one to have if they could only have one.

Provides detailed information on straw bale construction. Well worth the purchase of you are considering building, especially owner building.

Lots of good info in here that doesn't come from a quick Google search. Well thought out.

Está perfecto. Llegó en fecha y muy bien embalado. El envío fue un poco caro.

This book has a lot of the nitty-gritty details for best practices on what to do where different planes and materials meet, including windows, doors, ceilings, floors, and a multitude of others. It could be a bit better organized-- it felt like it jumped around a bit-- but it's the best one I've seen so far. I do wish books like this would quit talking about "why to consider straw bale" because at this point, if the reader is looking at the details, he or she has already done that. I'd rather see the pages filled with even more great pictures.