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<DIV>Dear european straw building friends,</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>I just wanted to say, that we've a new german so called "general" approval for straw as an insulation material. The main improvement is: it now allows to plaster directly on the straw (wasn't possible before), e.g. inside clay/ earth plaster outside lime plaster with hydrophobic paint. And some further less important changes, e.g. less restrictions for quality controls now (dimensions, binding, ...). We are able to use bales from nearby the building site without extra transportation, and by the way: for small residential building the manufacturer baustroh.de offers a very easy and inexpensive procedure. The client just calls the manufacturer, send 2 bales for pretest, if successful order full test. In addition to cost for the farmer and bale transportation from the field to site it currently costs 1.000€/ per house to have a fully legalised building material which allows the client to build extraordinary sustainable homes. There is no other fully legalised building material in Germany with such an easy and low cost certification.</DIV>
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<DIV>In german language: <A href="http://fasba.de/images//z-23.11-1595%203.6.2014kl.pdf">http://fasba.de/images//z-23.11-1595%203.6.2014kl.pdf</A> (translation into english is on the way, if you want to do it by your own, please send your text to me, that we can offer it on our website)</DIV>
<DIV>If you want to read more about our current situation in german: <A href="http://www.fnr.de/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/aktuelle-mitteilungen/aktuelle-nachricht/article/pm-2014-32/">http://www.fnr.de/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/aktuelle-mitteilungen/aktuelle-nachricht/article/pm-2014-32/</A></DIV>
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<DIV>And below you can see the recently unveiled 5-storey/ 1,800 sqm plastered SB building in Verden Northern Germany (designed by Thomas Isselhard and me) which will house the "Northern German centre for sustainable building" (translated title) in future.</DIV>
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<DIV><SPAN id=7f6592a4ca224f12bc18b7e0761cd851 class=plain><IMG border=0 alt="" src="cid:em34986e45-df1e-4ce2-8a3a-84415dd73376@tp220dirk"></SPAN> </DIV>
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<DIV>Dirk Scharmer - Architect <BR><BR>In de Masch 6<BR>D- 21394 Suedergellersen<BR>Tel.: +49 (0) 4131 727804<BR>Fax.: +49 (0) 4131 727805<BR>Email: <A href="mailto:mail@architekt-scharmer.de">mail@architekt-scharmer.de</A><BR><A href="http://www.strawbalehouse.de/">http://www.strawbalehouse.de/</A></DIV></BODY></HTML>