A straw bale house in Gunnison, Colorado that my wife and I visited. You want pictures of joists? Because I've got pictures of joists. I could show you some serious 10x10s, if that's what you're into.

They dye the sky in Gunnison that color, by the way. It's not natural.


I attended a Straw Bale Construction workshop today, although "seminar" would be apter, since to me "workshop" implies activity beyond reading, videos, and discussion. I don't hate these things, but it would have been nice to get my hands dirty. Despite the price tag, the workshop had a goodly number of attendees. Straw bales are cheap. It's just the learning that gets you.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, straw bale construction uses... straw bales... in construction. They're often used where otherwise sheetrock and insulation would go, but they can be load-bearing, showing surprisingly little compression. If log cabin construction is Tinkertoys, straw bale is Lego. A straw bale wall generally makes excellent insulation, with an R value from 30-50 depending on bale density and alignment. A lot of this insulative value comes from the thickness of the bale: straw bale walls can be around two feet thick. Two feet of fiberglass insulation would be pretty good, too, but straw is cheap. Bales run from two to six bucks here in Oregon, depending on the season and location.

A big draw for would-be bale builders is the environmental aspect. Straw is a waste product that is otherwise burned or buried (there are a few other uses, but I've yet to hear of anything widespread). It's organic--which to me means "carbon based", but apparently has some other meaning, if people can apply it to cheese puffs, bicycles, and water--and sustainable. Sustainability seems to me an insufficient criterion for a lifestyle. I can imagine a number of low-entropy states which are sustainably unpleasant. But it is nice to be using a material that will give us twenty or thirty years of use (or more!), and can then be spread on the garden to compost. So while for me the main attractions are price and ease of assembly, I acknowledge that it's a bonus to hold a hippie-lifestyle high card.

Straw bale is not actually much cheaper than traditional construction. In the long term it will save money of energy, but, apres Keynes, in the long term we're all dead. That it lends itself to small crews and owner-builders, however, potentially saves money on labor costs.

The rules for building with straw are the same as the rules for raising mogwai, except that instead of "don't feed them after midnight" you have "don't set them on fire". So I guess really just, "never get them wet". Oh, and both can be corrected with a sledgehammer if they get out of line.

Excess of moisture is how a straw bale house dies. Above seventy percent relative humidity, mold begin to grow, and the bale begins to suffer. The air which passes relatively freely from outside to inside (another advantage of straw bale construction is the air exchange) starts to smell a little off. The bale loses structural integrity. The walls collapse. Everyone dies. It's actually much worse than the danger of fire. Straw bales, expecially after they've been stuccoed, resist fire rather well. But because of the danger of rotting bales, the lowest course needs to be twelve to fourteen inches off the ground.

This, of course, is why I chose to move to the Pacific Northwest and build one. Sometimes I am rather contrary. But I was pleased to learn that any number of such houses have already been built in and around Portland, and that the humidity remained within safe limits. I don't like being the first penguin to jump off the ice. I like things safe, and established, preferably for at least two millenia. Building with straw fits nicely into that last category.

However, I am still a little suspicious of load-bearing bale walls. It just doesn't seem right to me, and all the successful Nebraskan churches in the world won't change my mind. I prefer a straw bale wrap, where the house is build using post-and-beam construction, and the bales are placed around the walls.

Anyway, my notebook is full of new books to read, magazines to subscribe to, and now-indecipherable notes like "30 lb. tar paper! Stem." One enjoyable thing about this sort of workshop is how easily it gets off topic. The same crowd drawn to straw bale workshops knows a good bit about grey-water systems, bottle walls, cobb construction, composting toilets, living roofs, passive and active solar power, and the multifarious tasks hemp can accomplish. Hearing about all these wonderful techniques, I immediately start building tree-houses, earthships, hobbit holes, and other castles in the sky. I want to use old blue jeans as insulation, and salvaged telephone poles as load-bearing posts. But no matter how much I like the subject, I cannot go eight hours of discussion with strangers without wanting to bite someone. Please note, fellow bale-enthusiasts: there are stupid questions, and today you asked a number of them.

One of my more pleasant summers was spent building an addition to a home. I hope my wife and I can experience that same satisfaction, along with putting a roof over our heads and four walls around us. We haven't studied floors yet.