But it says "inflammable" right there? I don't understand!

That's what I was thinking when I commented. I loved the video as a kid.

The joke is in reference to the Grenfell Fire fallout a few years back, where a group of over a dozen contractors had to be investigated over improper fireproofing with insulation tied to a large number of buildings and developments.

Yes, and my joke is in reference to the fact that "flammable" and "inflammable" have the same meaning.

Treatment: thanks for the Info

Comvusrion: that's news to me. I guess it needs to be very specific conditions for that to happen. If I know anything about German rules and regulations is that they are overly thourugh here and would have tested this to death. And there is a very strong insulation lobby by chemical companies here, so there is an incentive to stop these new (old?) techniques.

Edit: though about the combustion and the only thing that makes sense to me is a large mass where heat is trapped and has a runaway reaction like a compost.

Is this joke too English for me?

How do you spell Curb?

First: don't drill into walls from the outside if you don't know what's going on. True for all kinds of insulation. Wet polystyrene is also a disaster, albeit being not as fiery.

Second: don't drill into pipes. For that there are regulations to. Where are conduits supposed to be located and therefore you know where (not) to drill. If it still happens it's another human error and in my opinion as dangerous as nicking a powerline and creating a small glow (unlikely today thanks to gfci and such).

but to the larger point you made:
i am sure that if you put a lot of straw in a pile and add water and wait and settle that it will generate heat. Composts come to mind. That takes a lot of thickness for the heat to overcome thermodynamic equilibrium and start to burn.
Thr straw in the wall is sealed. But not for heat but air transit. As you can see in the picture of the article that wall has a thickness of about 50?cm, which is not enough to create that heat pile effect when wet. The heat would be dissipated, I am sure.

And what I am even more certain of is German regulations being overly thorough to the point of being anal. There is no way that this hasn't been tested to death especially with the strong chemical company's lobby here.

My Gluten allergy would never!

Maybe I'm getting straw and hay confused (we have a lot of grass farmers in the area) but now I wonder if you built your haybale home out of, Idk, oat grass? It'd probably smell better than wheat grass. Or grass grass.

Don't forget spontaneous mice

Or need to bake bread when pierre's is closed

Knowing nothing about this whatsoever, what's wrong with fiberglass insulation? The pink cotton candy kind.

I still do, but I used to, too

are made from f30 material

I'm such a dork for rockwool it's not funny.

Well yeah but water + haybales = fire traditionally (IIRC the drying process is exothermic somehow?)

I watched a strawbale building demonstration 20 years ago where they torched a stuccoed strawbale structure that had no treatments:

Are you a firefighter or family because those are the only folk I can think of who get to go to those and they sound fun as hell

That's what the permitting process is (theoretically) for: to ensure specific, potentially dangerous repairs and construction are done according to safety code.

Hypothetical situation: If you have to get a permit to do general contractor work, and the hole you find violates code, I would assume you would be expected to repair the hole. depending on the size of the hole (are we talking pinholes? Nails? How do you mount shit to a stud on a wall built out of haybales? Is the stud buried in the bale or extra thick to accommodate the thicker wall? I've never worked with one of these hay walls, the idea of them is so neat) I'd talk to the owner specifically about how I was repairing it so they could repair any other holes themselves, as that would likely not be the job I was hired to do. I haven't worked construction since high school tho so ymmv.

Rockwoll is the worst. It handles poorly, it is not renewable, it is energy intensive to manufscture, if its older than 1970 it is likely manufactured with asbestos and most importantly it had those tiny scratch fairy's that attack you for days to come.

I learned recently that the phase shift of rockwoll is terrible because of its low (thermal) mass. Meaning that it will become saturated rather quickly and then dissipates heat onwards. For a few years (20?) there has been an alternative made from wood fibre that is bound together by some degradable agent and impregnated with amonia salts (not great but loads better than the alternatives). it is recyclable as I'm the company picks up the offcuts and reuses them.
But most importantly its high mass (15kg per m²?) Is perfect for home roof insulation because it keeps most of the absorbed energy for about 12 hours before it's saturated. Keeping you cooler during the day and radiating inside and outside at night. Its called gutex and is very versatile.

Edit: it comes in fluffy and light style too as gutex thermowall. More like rockwoll I guess I can't recommend it enough. There are generic manufacturers too I am sure.

In a large pile like a compost it makes sense, but not in a thin (relatively) wall segment. It doesn't make sense to me ...

not getting all it's proper maintenance

So when my wife and I started dating, she had been given a car by a sister. That car had 150k miles on it and it got oil changes every 20k miles. In the 90s. Pre-synthetic oil.

Her family (aside from her oldest sister, who has been telling them all the same shit for decades) wonders why my/our cars have always been so nice, and I keep telling them "just keep it clean and do the recommended maintenance". I don't know if they think I'm keeping a secret or lying to them, but it's that easy.

As I've primarily rented (nothing much beyond standard rental contracts except a couple double nets, but I knew the owners and they preferred me to their usual maintenance guy) I'm suddenly wondering if I have been forgetting to rotate my foundation or something.

For certain definitions of good, they make these things called quonset huts. The metal ones aren't half bad if you insulate the fuck out of them (reno winters aren't that bad, but reno winters in a poorly insulated quonset hut? We had open jam sessions just to keep the building warm)

I've been experimenting with antiwolf flora. Plant a shitton of spooky spiky grass (okay maybe it can be a lil spooky) so wolfo gets papercuts trying to knock on the door and it sounds like an accordion when the wind blows, then email me your results at totallyyourgrannotawolf at MySpace dot org

What a country!

Straw has been used as a building material in England for maybe a thousand years. It used to be mainly used in roofing - thatching was a trade for a very long time, and you still see thatched houses in the countryside.
Obviously it needs maintenance, and occasionally you'll hear of a thatcher finding something ancient hidden away for centuries in the thatch.

Can't say I understand how it works, but it's a very effective means of building.

Well, just don't eat the house!

in what world do people hire contractors that repair unnecessary things that are "required by code"?

The straw bales are a dense and almost structural. They also grow in the ground and require little in terms of manufacture cost and processing. Blown fiberglass is literally the opposite

We normally use brick rather than wood frames for building here.

Ventilation used to come in the form of a fireplace and huge amounts of heat going out the chimney. Can't really replicate that with modern systems unless you just want to lose a lot of energy in the process. Ventilation with heat recovery is probably the best replacement.

Then you get some people who don't understand how energy use really works and turn the system off thinking it will save them money on their energy bills. Save 20p, get mould. Not sure if that was worth it but it happens a lot.

maybe take that one to no stupid questions

"Brits, stop building straw homes, the wolf will blow them away!"

Just watched this. Was interesting to see how they build with straw to modern standards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdpKKZUw1eA

Nah, they smolder, they don't burn.

It does mean that if a fire is already started and gets past the burn temperature they basically just will burn themselves to ash but not spread

nothing, except when you want to move a wall or drill an opening into it and suddenly you're fucked with a toxic inhaled material in the air

Its pain to work and to produce. As in the dust it sheds is horrible for the lungs plus very itchy on the skin. The production process is also more involved than harvest and drying of a byproduct of grain production.

Even the Big Bad Wolf can't cope with British NIMBYism.

He'll huff and he'll puff all he likes but nothing will stop Bernard and Mildred, 78 from organising the blocking of any building or demolition work within a dozen miles of the house they bought for £500 and half a pack of cigarettes in 1965.

Be a kid: scared of house burning down.

Be an old homeowner: scared of water, and house burning down would save me a lot of work, lol.

Way easier to blow down than shipping containers

Jesus Christ, you actually think you hang things directly on the straw 🤣

Roofing has constant air circulation.

No. I think that straw insulation requires a complete seal and nails puncture that seal.

Soon goats and sheep will be add-ons on your homeowners insurance.

At least it's cellulose rather than the mineral and plastic dusts from working with conventional building materials. Human bodies have pretty much zero ability to break down the latter.