The Dyers' house is under construction near Cooper's landing, where they have an organic apple orchard and flower farm. Joan and Greg Dyer will soon have the first house in Missouri built with ...

A new way to insulate homes is coming to Columbia. Greg and Joan Dyer are building their new house using prefabricated straw insulation. Using straw to insulate a home reduces its carbon footprint, as ...

Traditional forms of thermal insulation used to regulate temperatures in homes and commercials buildings are often energy-intensive to manufacture, resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions. A ...

EASTHAMPTON — When Easthampton builder Greg Bossie was looking for environmentally friendly ways to insulate the houses he constructs, he harkened back centuries to when people stayed warm by tucking ...

Architects measure insulation by a scale called R-value, and Boeck said the straw-bale house will measure better than R-50. "The standard requirement is R-19 for the home and R-32 for a roof," he said ...

Lawrence Lile's name was spelled incorrectly in an earlier version of this story. Two homes in Columbia that used straw for insulation can be seen this month on a tour that could signal a major change ...

Near Hudson, N.Y., a Princeton University team erected a cottage made from the agricultural byproduct, which they said is ...

Interior designer Marcia Wolff wanted a house that's energy-efficient, ecologically sensitive, fire-resistant and, above all, beautiful. So she chose a building material that might surprise some ...

LAKE CITY — Pink isn’t the color of the insulation in the home that Paul and Sara Freid are building in Goodhue County. It’s golden, like the hue of grain fields at harvest time, because the ...

Using straw instead of typical insulation materials reduces a house’s carbon footprint, because straw absorbs carbon instead of emitting it. It's also highly energy efficient, can be sourced locally ...