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International Straw Bale Building Registry Greenbuilder.com, The Last Straw Journal, The Straw Bale Association of Texas, and the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, along with a number of regional strawbale organizations, are working together to build a database of buildings constructed using straw bale. Register Now! | Update a Listing | View the Listings Mortgage Companies | Insurance Companies Donations to support this project are welcome. The Last Straw's publisher , The Green Prairie Foundation for Sustainability/GPFS, is a 501(c)(3) and can accept tax deductible contributions. Please send donations made out to GPFS/TLS to: International Straw Bale Registry Project The Last Straw Journal PO Box 22706 Lincoln, NE, 68542-2706 USA Donations may also be made online by credit card. The aggregate numbers will be useful in such things as lobbying insurance companies, mortgage companies, building officials, and other such stick-in-the-muds, and will also be useful in further popularizing SB to the general public world wide. Reading in a magazine article that "over $xxx million in strawbale construction already exists in North America" can have a strong effect on our credibility. The Registry will also act as a contact list for future research and performance testing. Privacy: Our intention and committment is to respect the privacy of you, the owners. If you haven't EXPLICITLY said that you're open to visitors/tours, your address and other contact info will NOT be available to the public. Address and contact info will only be used to avoid duplication of listings in those cases. If you choose "No Visitors" or "Research and Testing Only" you can safely enter all the pertinant contact info and description of your home with the assurance that *only* the staff of Sustainable Sources and The Last Straw will have access to that info. Similarly, you are given the option to display as little as one contact method (phone, email, mailing address, physical address). Entering your email address is recommended, whether or not you actually display it, as the system automatically sends a confirmation email with instructions on updating your listing. Please let us know if there are any obvious ommissions or errors - from typos to incorrect functionality. Here's the formula for our community-based revival: gather the existing information, use it - with your own innovations - to build with bales, record what did and didn't work, and pass that information on to others. Today, this culture of inclusiveness and grassroots participation at every level of both growing and using our collection of resources is the beating heart of the straw-bale construction revival. --Judy Knox, The Last Straw, Issue 15, Summer 1996 Known problems and work in progress: For those countries which are broken out by state/province, filter displayed listings by country to avoid listings from another country with same initials (ie, Western Australia and Washington State are both "WA") Add glossary of terms. Anyone want to take a run at this? If Date Completed/Occupied is in the future, add an "In Progress" flag. Allow for month/year or maybe just year in "Begin Date" and Complete/Occupy Date. Report error if completion date is before begin date. Add links from top of page to "by appointment" and "tour", etc. so that it'll be easy to navigate when there are many listings. Flesh out "subcontractors" - add fields for major areas of work and their contact info. Concatenate into sub field for display. Consider adding structure type on list of individual structures, along with name/city/state. Build in ability to choose Builder and Architect/Designer from those listed in the Green Building Professionals Directory, and to update Registry records when Directory records are updated. Add photo gallery Add fields for monetary denomination for mortgage/appraised value. Recent updates: 2/05: Re-work insurance page to show general info about which companies and agencies have insured SB. 2/04: Allow updates based on email address/password OR location address/password (previously it was just location address/password). 9/03: Remove the insurance info from circulation. I'm open to suggestions on how to grant access which won't be abused by insurance companies. 5/3/03: Improve load time for mortgage and insurance pages. 5/11/02: List mortgage co and insurance by state. 1/4/02: Correct update form to properly show changes prior to confirm. 1/2/02: Adjust so that if Contact email = Architect email = Builder email, duplicate confirmations are not sent. 1/1/02: Automatically send listing confirmation to builder and architect if valid email address exists for them. Invite to list other SB projects and to list themselves in Green Building Pro Directory. 1/1/02: All text fields will now accept quotation marks. 10/5/01: If an error is detected in the info supplied (a required field not filled in, bad format on an email address, etc), provide a link to that location in the form. 10/5/01: Request currency type in mortgage, appraised value. Change "mortgage amt" to "loan amount" for clarity 10/4/01: Fixed problem on search details page with display of plaster application/bale pinning 8/23/01: Set up so that countries with a large number of listings can be split by state/province. Implemented for US, ready to go for Canada, Australia. 8/17/01: Changed listings by country to now include owner and contact if they are not the same. 8/17/01: Coded search page to only display contact info of the registrant's choice. 8/16/01: GO LIVE! 8/16/01: When choice is "other", description didn't display properly in search details or in narrative form on register or update page. Fixed. 8/16/01: Fixed the wording of the narrative form for "multiple guess" on both Register and Update. 8/13/01: Search results now sort by state. 8/12/01: Add two new questions: one to allow you to choose which contact info (phone, mail, email) is published if you allow visitors, and one to find out about previous ownership - ie, how many times has the structure been sold. 8/10/01: Search mechanism is now functional. 7/30/01: From Login on the Update page - if you have the address but can't get the password correct, you can now click a button to send a reminder email to the existing contact email address with the correct login info. If you don't have the address correct, you'll still have to email a human... Register Now! | Update a Listing | Search