Recently meeting with experienced straw builders, I couldn’t help but recall the classic tale of the three little pigs, where the house made of straw famously didn’t stand the test of time. Intrigued by this age-old lesson, I delved into the concepts behind this new, yet traditional, method of construction.
Jason Newberry, Interim City Manager, and Barry Dicker, Project Leader and President of Decent Energy, Inc. provided Dr. Chuck Booten, Senior Engineer, Building Energy Sciences Mechanical and Thermal Systems Engineering with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) a tour of the buildings and thermal tile installation in Sumner County’s “Building Technologies Proving Ground – Public Sector Field Validation” project that was awarded by the United States Department of Energy (DOE).