From the Ground up, by a Single Mom

This is a great video from a single mom who built her own straw bale home for $50,000 while working still full time and living on the land.  She gives some excellent advice here for anyone who is considering building their own straw bale home, from labor, to coding, to construction.

She also has a great website, HouseOfStraw.com, which I definitely recommend to anyone who is considering straw bale construction for their home, or sustainable green building in general.  You will find great information, from someone who has been through it all.

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We’ve talked about straw bale constructions here before, so we know this is a realistic form of construction.  They don’t blow down as easy as the storybooks say, and the houses are quite beautiful.  But is it really safe?  Isn’t straw highly flammable?  What about earthquakes?
There is actually evidence to suggest straw-bale accommodations are SAFER than current methods of home design.

First off, when it comes to fires, straw bale housing is extremely fire resistant.  Sure, you don’t want a lot of loose hay coming out of the walls near an open flame, but if properly constructed, trying to burn down a straw bale house is like trying to burn through a phonebook.

This is due to the fact that a well-constructed straw bale house is packed airtight using special tools and techniques.  This ensures that there is no settling after the roof is finished, that pests stay out of the airtight wall cavities, and, most importantly, that walls are fire resistant. Once the bales are fastened together, wrapped, and covered in plaster, there is no room for oxygen to feed a burn.  In fact, tests performed throughout North America show a traditional wall can be devastated by a fire in half an hour to an hour while a straw built wall holds strong for two hours before the flames burn through.

Straw-built walls are also better for earthquakes.  I know you are imagining tumbling hay stacks right now, but not so fast.  In the load-bearing structures, which still do not pass regulations in many locales, the walls are particularly strong.  Scientists have begun to point out these are actually the ideal building practices in earthquake-prone regions like the California coast where frame houses often shake apart.

Third, a straw-built structure is better for your health.  While most people might see this as a stretch, straw bale houses are healthier because they are more soundproof.  Studies show repetitive noises like traffic, which we tend to tune out after long exposure, take significant years off life span, even if not consciously heard.

Additionally, materials usually used for insulating and building a home can be hazardous to human health by aggravating allergies and causing Sick House Syndrome.  Most sufferers never even realize their home is making them sick. Straw bale houses do not have these hidden enemies, as you know exactly what is in the walls.

As you can see, building your house out of these bulky Lego-like blocks provides a safe, healthy living environment.  In America, 200 million tons of straw go to waste or get burned every year, producing ghastly amounts of CO2, while we create more pollution manufacturing traditional housing materials that are hard on the environment in incalculable ways .  Not too mention all the energy consumed to transport materials when straw is often a local, untapped resource.

So set your concerns aside. Straw bale housing really is a safe and eco-friendly alternative.

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Cob is an ancient building technology being rediscovered for today’s green home.  A gob is a clump of dirt and fiber that can be tossed from builder to builder on a cob work site.  If throwing mud isn’t enough, try squishing it between your toes.  Cob is traditionally made by mixing sand, clay, straw, and water with bare feet in a labor-intensive yet rewarding process for the do-it-yourselfer.

Building with cob (also called earthen building or natural building) is easy to learn, requires few manufactured resources, and no power tools.  Cob walls are very forgiving, and the material is nontoxic, so kids can help with the project.

Because cob homes are hand-sculpted, they lend themselves to unusual shapes and curves.  They are a good fit for passive solar design because their one to two foot walls provide impressive thermal mass that keeps the interior temperature stable.

Pipes and wires are laid directly in the wall, and there is no need for vapor barriers, sheetrock, or painting.  Different mixtures of the same basic cob materials can produce plasters, floors, and interior structures like sleeping platforms.

Cob builders are typically aware of the benefits of building with local and natural materials.  They often incorporate recycled and locally salvaged materials into dwellings that are both beautiful and affordable.  Check out these cob homes handbuilt by  MudGirls Natural Building Collective.

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Houses built out of foam sandwiches are both eco-friendly and strong enough to withstand earthquakes.  Meet the SIP, or Structural Insulated Panel–a thick layer of foam insulation pressed between two sheets of plywood or oriented strand board.

SIP homes are so airtight that the EPA has waived its blower door test requirement for SIP houses.  Because the amount of insulation is consistent throughout the panel, SIP walls have better insulating qualities than traditional walls with fiberglass insulation applied onsite.  SIP homeowners can save up to 60% in energy costs.

For those who prefer natural materials, SIPS with a straw core made from renewable agricultural waste are available, but the foam insulation outperforms the straw.  The foam is 98% air, free of ozone-depleting CFCs, manufactured using heat and steam, recyclable, and “requires only a small amount of petroleum to produce,” according to the Structural Insulated Panel Association (SIPA).  SIPA asserts, “The average SIP home saves nineteen times the energy it took to make the EPS insulation in the first year of installation.”

The versatile SIP can be used for walls, roofs, or flooring.  Because SIP homes require no structural lumber, they use far less wood than a traditionally framed home.  The trees used in the oriented strand board are fast-growing and harvested young, so no old-growth lumber is used.

SIPs are prefabricated and custom measured for each project.  SIP manufacturers often recycle their waste foam into other products.  The panels install easily and produce little construction waste.

A SIP building costs about the same as a traditional structure.  The SIPs themselves are more expensive, but the cost of labor is less.  Homeowners are often pleased to see how quickly their SIP homes take shape.

With SIPs, you get energy efficiency, waste reduction, and resource conservation–not bad for a foam sandwich.

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My grand-dad used to say “pick your poison.”  He knew that nothing is perfect.  There are good things and not so good things about every choice.   When sustainability is your primary goal, you make decisions with a different set of parameters.  You might be willing to put forth a little more time and effort knowing that the end result will benefit not only you, but the environment.  But before you begin any big project, you better sit down with a paper and pencil and make the old “T” chart.  I started one for you.  Behold, some pros and cons of earthen plaster.

Pro

• Low Environmental Impact
• Energy intensive
• Adds thermal mass for both passive and active solar heating
• Relatively inexpensive
• Easily patched and repaired
• Adds a warm, natural feeling to your dwelling
• Has great breathability
• Provides a protective shell for your straw bale home
• Lots of warm, rich colors
• Variations in texture
• Allows for artistic expression

Con

• Can get saturated by rain and constant wetness
• Can mold (grows on the organic matter in your plaster,  but there are techniques to minimize or stop this)
• Labor intensive
• Doesn’t meet building codes in some localities
• Can crack and “dust” if composition and consistency of earthen plaster is incorrect
• Requires multiple coats
• Sensitive to temperature and weather when applying
• Is pretty messy!

I think the pro list is longer than the con.  So if we follow “T” chart rules, this project is a go. Earthen plaster has been used for centuries.  Earthen plaster dwellings have stood the test of time; you can find these dwellings literally scattered around the world. Why not add your home to the list?

Looking for “recipes” for earthen plaster? You can find several in my last post, Earthen Plaster Recipes.

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Recipes for earthen plaster abound.  Some recipes use straw, some use manure, some cattail fuzz, and others add lime.  Read a ton and learn, but remember the earthen plaster mix or recipe you end using is your individual choice.  You’ll end up doing a lot of experimenting because the clay soils differ from area to area.  So don’t get frustrated.  Just remember to write it down after you figure it out.

I’ve collected some earthen plaster recipe options.  Most of them provide some instructions on their specific procedures.

Recipe 1

• 3 (five gallon) buckets of sifted sand (sand sifted through a 1/8″ screen to remove pebbles)
• 1 bucket of mixed wet clay
• 3/4 bucket fresh cow manure
• cattail fluff (see fibers in every handful of material)
• 8 cups of wheat paste

Recipe 2

• 4 Parts Clay (presoaked overnight in water)
• 4 Parts Sand
• 1 Part Flour Paste
• 2.5 Parts chopped Straw or Cattail Fuzz (straw cut into one inch lengths)

Recipe 3

This one is for rough coat:

• 1 part creamy clay slip (from site or mixed water and clay)
• 2 parts medium sand
• ½ part fiber (chopped straw)

Recipe 4

• One part clay soil
• Three to four parts sand
• One-half part fine fiber
• Enough water to make the plaster into a consistency slightly wetter than peanut butter.

This is just a small sampling of what’s out there.   Clearly the recipes for earthen plaster differ, so experiment, experiment, experiment.  For mixing the mud, save yourself some pain and get a mixing paddle that you attach to a drill.  Professional mud guys wouldn’t be without this tool.

Time to get that mud slung on the walls. Good luck!

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Smear mud all over the walls of your house.  Really.  It’s an idea whose time has come.  Actually it’s an idea that’s been around for eons of time, but has been mostly lost to contemporary American culture.  I know that the dry wall guys claim to be using “mud,” but I’m talking about real earth, real mud.   I have to say I became a little more eager to entertain this possibility to do some eco-decorating when I started reading articles about how earth plaster can be used in ways that are similar to some of the current wall finishes and treatments; such as Venetian plaster.

“Many colors are possible, mostly in muted hues. Earthen plasters, with their slight–or major if you choose–variations in surface texture, reflectivity, and color bring a sense of life to a room or a whole house. They lend a handmade feel, often in a classic Old World sense. Some finishes look almost like leather or marble, but there is a lot of room for creativity. You can smooth and round corners and transform boring flat sheetrock by adding a bit of sensuous undulation or trowel or hand marks. Most people feel more comfortable in rooms that have some variation in wall surface, shape, texture, and color, perhaps because we humans have been housed for millennia in caves, and houses of wood, stone, mud and thatch–not in flat-planed boxes!”

Sounded pretty good to me; definitely worth some research.  All plasters have to have three ingredients:  a binder, an aggregate and some fiber.  In the case of earthen plaster, clay (good old fashion dirt) is the binder, sand serves as aggregate, and the binder, well…it needs to be from some kind of straw and manure.  The odor leaves when the “mud” dries.  People experiment with all sorts of additives to make the mud easier to apply and more durable; things like wheat paste, whey and milk products, even cactus juice.  Having grown up in Arizona, that last item seems like a stretch.

Now there are companies like American Clay that make a commercial product that is pretty simple to purchase and use.  Somehow I feel like using this type of a product is missing the point.  Even though this product states that they are an “environmentally friendly alternative to cement, gypsum, acrylic, and lime plasters,” the processing, packaging and marketing renders it not that eco-friendly.

So if I don’t go the prefab route and hire a professional to apply it, just how hard is this?  More in my next post.

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We’ve heard it since our childhood.  If you want a strong house (one that can’t be blown down!) you have to build with brick.  There are plenty of folks that are proving that old tale wrong.  The majority of these straw homes are being built in the west and southwest United States, Australia and New Zealand; places with a somewhat more dry and temperate climates.  There is a registry of straw bale houses around the world—kind of interesting.

I have seen a straw home built in one of the harshest climates in the continental U.S.–Driggs, Idaho. Some years ago, I watched with great interest (and much skepticism) as this dwelling went up a mile or so from my parent’s home.  Among the old farmers in the area, the house was the butt of more than a few jokes.  Well, years later, it is still standing and functioning well and the farmers are getting used to the idea.  Besides, it’s a new source to sell all that straw that the farmers’ grain fields generate.

Speaking of farmers, it was pioneer farmers who built straw and grass homes on the prairies of the Nebraska and Oklahoma over a century ago.  No trees?  No timber?  No problem.  Straw and grass were readily available, could be stacked like bricks, didn’t require elaborate tools, and could be constructed in a shorter period of time.  The homes were well insulated, had great “breathability,” and believe it or not, were quite fire resistant.  They created  homes that were inexpensive, functional, and pleasant places to live in.  Obviously, these are qualities that budget and environmentally conscious people are looking for today.   History does need to repeat itself.

There is a plethora of websites, companies, and individuals who are eager to share their knowledge on the techniques of building a straw house.  The science of straw house building and my attitude about the whole thing has come a long way since those days of me and the Idaho farmers standing around laughing and smirking at the neighbors.  It is past time we all got serious about it.

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