[GSBN] How many strawbale buildings in the USA?

Tue Sep 17 04:33:13 UTC 2013

Based on the numbers in the SB Registry for Texas vs the number I know 
of in just the Central Texas area, I would definitely push the numbers 
to easily 10x the listed amounts in general.

One thing to consider is the kind of people who are often drawn to SB.  
There are a fair number (at least in the US) who are very private about 
personal information, and there are a fair number who have no interest 
in the online world, both of whom would not be likely to list themselves.

Note also that the Registry is entirely voluntary.

Note also that the listing numbers have been rather flat for a good 
number of years - partly because we've stopped promoting it as much as 
we used to.  Perhaps there has been a slowdown in the actual 
construction numbers as well.  That wouldn't be entirely surprising.  
Maybe the revival of The Last Straw will bring an influx of new listings.

There are pockets where SB enthusiasts have listed every building that 
goes up.  There are more areas where people quietly built after 
researching on the internet or reading about it in a magazine somewhere, 
with little to no connection to the wider SB/natural building community.

For my own part, I have to say that the Registry is deeply in need of a 
software overhaul.  We built it 12 years ago, and the underlying 
programming is way out of date.  The server it's on is old and slow, 
because the software is so old it won't run on a newer server.  Hard 
drive space cost a lot more back then... now it's a lot cheaper and we 
could easily accommodate image uploads. There are a lot of other 
enhancements we could do, if time and money were no object.  It's been 
on my long list of things to do for quite a while now, but I've had to 
keep my attention on work that pays my bills (there's been just slightly 
above zero funding beyond the initial generosity of Catherine Wanek).  
Now that I've taken on a 40 hour a week gig, my time to work on pet 
projects like this is slimmer than ever, though the financial need is, 
fortunately, less.

At the same time, I regularly get email from people who benefit from its 
existence - finding information about mortgagers and insurance, as well 
as just finding out, as someone put it in an email to me this morning, 
that at least someone else in their area has already gone through the 
permitting process.

On 9/16/13 2:16 PM, martin hammer wrote:
> Re: [GSBN] How many strawbale buildings in the USA? Hi Catherine,
>
> Whenever I'm faced with this question, I go to the International Straw 
> Bale Registry; http://sbregistry.sustainablesources.com/search.straw
>
> I take the number of registered SB buildings, for a particular state, 
> country, continent, or planet, and multiply it by a reasonable factor. 
>  That factor will vary depending on the state or country.  For 
> California with 125 registered buildings, I've used a factor of 5, 
> assuming for every SB building registered there are 4 that aren't. 
>  But that factor is an educated hunch.  It could be too high, but I've 
> also heard people say that for every one registered there are 10 that 
> aren't.
>
> There are 89 registered in Colorado, 741 in the US, 92 in Canada, 29 
> in Australia, 6 in NZ, 7 in the UK, 2 in Pakistan (where I know there 
> are over 30), 597 in China (I believe Kelly has stated there are now 
> about 1000), 1 in Haiti (where I know there is 1), so the factor 
> depends on what you know, or think you know for the region.
>
> For the NY Times inquiry, the enquiring mind (reporter?) could say "In 
> the US there are 741 straw bale buildings registered on the 
> International Straw Bale Registry.  Many practitioners believe there 
> are at least 4 times that many in the US that are not registered, 
> suggesting a total of over 3500 straw bale buildings in the US."   And 
> similarly for Europe and the world. Pick your numbers.
>
> Glad you're safe and sound at the Black Range Lodge.
>
> Martin
>
>
> On 9/16/13 12:44 PM, "Catherine Wanek" 
> <mail at builderswithoutborders.org> wrote:
>
>     I know that this topic has been on this list before....but I
>     haven't seen a compilation of how many strawbale buildings there
>     are in the USA.
>
>     ...An enquiring mind from the NY Times would like a rough estimate.
>
>     Is there an estimate of how many in Europe?  The World?
>
>     Sincerely,
>     Catherine Wanek
>     Co-director
>     Builders Without Borders
>     www.builderswithoutborders.org
>     <http://www.builderswithoutborders.org/>
>
>     /Ecological builders working together for a sustainable future.
>     /
>
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