Want to fight climate change and ease the housing crisis? Build a straw home like this Utahn did.

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.

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The little two-story house in Susan Klinker’s backyard was cool and bright one scorching August day.

Natural light illuminated the space but, at afternoon’s peak, not a single ray cut across the floor. Being inside the cottage felt a bit like basking under the shade of a century-old tree.

Klinker had spent a lot of time thinking about how light would play with the changing seasons in her 650-square-foot accessory dwelling in east Salt Lake City and designed it according to “passive solar” principles to minimize energy use.

“At the summer solstice,” Klinker explained, “not one bit of sun comes in here.”

In winter, she added, when trees lose their leaves and the sun sits lower in the sky, the rays hit the concrete floor, which then “radiates that heat back up at night.”

It’s a subtle difference, one of many that make the structure as sustainable as possible.

Klinker is one of a growing number of residents helping to boost the housing supply one accessory dwelling unit at a time. Since adopting new guidelines last year, the city has approved more than 70 ADU permits. But her backyard project, which Klinker now rents out for $2,100 a month, aims to do more than just add units to the rental market.

From ceilings formed from reclaimed barn wood to a “mini split” heat pump, the cottage serves as a prototype for a more environmentally conscious model of construction that helps battle climate change.

Though you’d never know it from the outside, the home’s walls are insulated with, yes, chopped straw — a building technique that the American Institute of Architects notes is less carbon-intensive than traditional materials.

Klinker has been interested in natural building materials for decades and wanted to find a way to urbanize a straw building, an approach usually reserved for rural areas. She hopes her “Strawtegi CO2ttage,” nestled on a quiet street in Sugar House, will inspire other Utahns to adopt the techniques and use them in their backyards.

Air quality and heating

Homes are not among the biggest contributors to air pollution, but they do emit nitrogen oxide, a precursor to ozone and PM2 particulates.

Klinker’s straw home not only utilizes an efficient mini split, but its walls also are extra thick. “I wanted really good insulation in it,” she said. “The windows are all triple glazed, so they have super high insulation.”

The accessory dwelling unit also sports rooftop solar panels and the garage includes an electric vehicle charger that Klinker uses for her hybrid Toyota Prius.

As vehicle and industry emission levels improve, residential sources of emissions will become “more important and more prominent,” said Glade Sowards, policy analyst with the Utah Division of Air Quality. “Most of our home pollution comes from natural gas combustion, but some comes from our wood stoves and fireplaces, which is why we have no-burn days in the winter.”

Residential homes annually account for about 4.1% Utah’s nitrogen oxide emissions, although that percentage spikes in wintertime.

“Passive solar or heat pumps, those are great options for reducing emissions,” Sowards said, “as are simpler things like more efficient furnaces, ultra-low NOx water heaters — they can all play a part.”

Reducing a building’s carbon footprint

A few walls in Klinker’s cottage have small windows that reveal the straw holding up the walls. She chose the material for its low impact and ability to store carbon.

A study found that replacing “high-carbon materials” with “low-carbon materials” like straw reduced greenhouse gas emissions that come from materials and construction of a home by nearly 40%.

The building method is gaining traction. In California’s Ventura County, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard built a 2,200-square-foot straw bale home featured in Dwell Magazine.

“All this waste material,” Chouinard told the magazine, “it can capture a lot of carbon and seal it up if it’s used this way.”

Klinker turned to other natural materials for her tiny home, using a product made from rice hulls for the bathroom ceiling.

“It is an agricultural waste product,” she said, “and it also is inherently antimicrobial and waterproof.”

She salvaged the beams holding up the lofted bedroom from a friend’s barn and built the kitchen’s island table from a piece of wood she found on KSL’s classifieds.

“The ways that we’re building now are so unhealthy for us and so toxic for the environment,” Klinker said. “Somehow there needs to be a hybrid that comes together, where the traditional ways of building naturally cross-informs high-tech building.”

Adding to missing middle housing

Klinker has had little trouble renting out the eco-friendly space with its tall ceilings, lofted bedroom and front and backyard space. She put extra storage behind a “Murphy bookshelf” that the current tenant uses to store climbing and other outdoor gear.

Building and renting out her ADU has gone well so far, she said. “I love it.”

A recent empty-nester, Klinker, who works full time at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City, is considering moving into the space herself and renting out her four-bedroom home once her kids have settled on their own.

Klinker sees her project as the beginning of a straw-construction renaissance. It’s a way of building that she believes could be “better for the environment and better for humans, and, hopefully, better for the economy.”

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