The island had an eco-tour last week as a fund-raiser for the community hall. It was quite fascinating to see the types of homes that various islanders have built/are building. There were ten houses to visit and each was built with eco-friendly material. There were homes made from straw-bales and buildings made of concrete and straw blocks that looked like solid concrete blocks but were MUCH lighter. Some of the homes had solar hot water or solar electricity and some captured rain water from their roof instead of having a well. Because materials like straw aren't hard, its easy to cut out windows or interesting niches in the walls. But, at the same time, the straw-bales provide great insulation - equal to a 35-40 R value, if you know what that means.

I tried to include a photo with this post but I got a message to say my image was too large and I found that none of my images are small enough.