Michael Lawson's Straw Home Offers Roadmap For Ditching The Heating Bill

Straw Home Offers Roadmap For Ditching The Heating Bill

When James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps wrote the fairy tale The Three Little Pigs, he probably didn't think someone would actually try to build a straw house. Then along came California resident Michael Lawson.

In an interview with CNNMoney, the professional musician described how he and his wife Lisa decided to build a house out of straw, with motivations including the ability to avoid large utility bills and have a large living space. Lawson's classical group, the Sacramento Baroque Soloists, describes the home as a "passive-solar straw-bale house" on its website.

Nearly everything about the house is designed to collect heat and conserve energy. Even the windows are placed facing south so that they can collect winter heat. But the Lawsons aren't the first to build a custom home engineered to conserve heat. The Shangri-La Dome Home in Aguilar, Colorado features an extremely efficient fireplace that can heat the entire house to nearly 70 degrees, regardless of temperature, according to CNBC.

Take a look at the home in the video below:

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