Chris Naylor and his partner Debbie Robb wanted to live in a non-toxic home that was cheap and quick to build.
After looking at several options, they decided on a straw-bale house.
While the house did not turn out to be cheaper than a conventional home, it provided the couple and their five children with a warm, dry home that "breathes". After 12 years of living in it, they are more than happy with their decision.
The framework of the house is wooden posts and beams filled with straw bale. Lime wash and linseed oil provide the finishes. The outside walls are half a metre thick, and provide excellent insulation. The interior walls are concrete block, which help hold the heat in winter and the cool in summer. The fireplace has a wetback and solar panels, and a compost lavatory, which has worked well, Mr Naylor said.
"With a compost toilet we use a lot less water, as the average toilet uses about 40% of a house's water supply each day."
There is no treated timber or polyurethane finishes, as Mr Naylor said the toxic chemicals from the gas given off those products can last for about 20 years.
Mr Naylor and Ms Robb built the house, staying at the site as soon as they could. The top floor was closed in first, and the family was eating and living on the bottom floor, with tarpaulins all around the outside, right into June.
"Luckily, it was a late winter, and it wasn't too cold then," Ms Robb said.
The house won the Otago Regional Council environmental award for innovation in 2000.
Mr Naylor is critical of the Sante Fe-style homes built today. The wrong materials are used for them, he thinks.
"They should be built of solid masonry, and then we wouldn't have the leaky home syndrome. This place should last hundreds of years. It is like the earth, and can breathe. If you give a house a good hat and good boots, it should last."
