Eco-sustainability and energy performance of a straw house

Together with Maisonéco, a modular system has been developed to present a solution combining eco- sustainability with versatility, low-costs and very rapid construction times. The first module, built in 2014 in the northern part of Italy, consists in about 30 m 2 of housing module with a wooden structure and a thermal insulating panel made by compact straw with parallel fibers. The monitoring and data collection system was designed and implemented by the Institute of Technical and Professional Education - LyTechPro of Verrès (AO) within the Project Energie, an educational project funded by CVA S.p.A., a leading production company for electricity from renewable sources owned by the Aosta Valley Autonomous Region. In this work, the experimental measurements are presented for two years, evaluating the energy performance of the straw house during the heating and cooling seasons with the indoor and outdoor thermo-hygrometric conditions. Straw does not have the best performance compared with standard insulating materials but, considering a greater thinness of the block, may reach higher levels of thermal insulation. From an environmental point of view, straw can be used in green building as it is a degradable material, its production derives by agricultural waste with low environmental impact as does not requires industrial process. Moreover, its recycling could also be exploited by agricultural sector to expand the market and thus become suppliers of straw also for the construction sector. Finally, straw characteristics are also combined with low costs, as waste material, with 2.5-3.5 euros per block or 1,000-1,400 euros per 150 m 2 building.