Catherine Wanek

The New Straw Bale Home--Introduction (excerpted)

A wonderful irony about straw-bale home owners is that they often started out as complete skeptics. "Doesn’t it rot? Doesn’t it burn? What about the Big Bad Wolf?" We converts who’ve heard this before have learned to smile patiently. After all, it was little more than a decade ago that modern-day pioneers seeking affordable, ecological, beautiful housing built the first code-approved straw-bale homes. Now they are found in every state in the U.S. and all over the world.

It’s not surprising so many have been converted by the amazing potential of the humble bale. Individually, a stalk of straw seems fragile, but hundreds together, compressed and baled, make a sturdy building block. Stack a bunch of these blocks together and walls can go up in a hurry--especially if you enlist your family and friends to help. Roof and plaster it, and you have an energy-efficient house--the concept is simple and intuitive. And soft, sculptable straw bales can be shaped into cozy spaces, forming a home that feels like an embrace.

This home not only feels good, but you can feel good about it--straw is commonly underutilized, composted or burned as an agricultural waste product. The "staff" of the staff of life, straw is available at a cheap price where ever grain is grown. Replacing conventional "stick frame" walls with bales can cut by half the amount of timber needed in a modern home, reducing demand on forest resources. And stacked like giant bricks to form a thick wall, bales offer super insulation from the heat or cold or noise outside, providing a quiet, comfortable living space with modest life-time energy requirements.

Building with bales could also impact "global warming," by significantly reducing fossil fuel consumption. And saving fuel saves money. Straw-bale homeowners from New Mexico to Nova Scotia, California to China, live comfortably with energy bills that are a fraction of their neighbors. Constructed with care, these homes have successfully endured snow and rain, earthquakes and hurricanes.

Historical Precedents

Building with bales began over a century ago as pioneers began to settle in the sandhills of Nebraska. Finding themselves in a sea of grass on a treeless prairie, they utilized the relatively new technology of horse-powered baling machines to create a stable building block from an abundant local resource. The pioneers saved their precious trees for roof structure, simply stacking up interlocking bales and plastering them with local mud or cement stucco, to create sturdy homes. But as soon as railroads came through, bringing brick and timber and other supplies, Nebraskans began building themselves "real" homes, and straw bale houses faded into history.

Enough examples of straw bale construction survive to give modern builders clues to durability and give confidence in the structural stability of bales. The Jim Sturtz homestead near Stapleton, built in 1905, was still lived in until recent years. It remains in good shape today, despite a single diagonal crack in the stucco that indicates some structural settling. This is probably due to frost heave against its minimal foundation.

In Arthur, Nebraska two fine straw bale buildings are still in use today--the Martin/Monhart home, built in 1925, and the 1 ½ story Pilgrim Holiness Church, constructed in 1928. Initially coated with local gumbo mud, they have both been replastered with a cement-based stucco. The church is now a museum run by the Arthur Historical Society. During a renovation in 1976, builders left part of an original wall exposed, so visitors can appreciate its straw bale pedigree. This is the first example of what is now known as a "truth window."

The Martin/Monhart home also has a tale to tell, of a day when a tornado blew through town. In addition to enormous wind and pressure, the noise of a tornado has been compared to a freight train. After the funnel cloud swirled away from Arthur, relatives ran over to see how the residents had fared. Not only was the house undamaged, but the bale walls were so sound-proof, that the Monharts were found playing cards at the dining table, oblivious to the weather outside.

In Huntsville, Alabama, a visionary doctor constructed a mansion of straw bales in 1938, utilizing bales as insulation for walls and ceilings between a concrete post-and-beam structure. As the story goes, Dr. Burritt was making his rounds one day and stopped to rest in a barn. Noting the cool comfort that straw bales provided, he resolved to build this way one day. The result is his legacy, a handsome home with shingled exterior walls, and no hint of its bale insulation. The building has survived over six decades of deep south humidity and rainfall, and today the mansion continues to serve Huntsville as its city museum.

A Home For All Climates

In the last decade, contemporary architects and builders have successfully adapted strawbale designs to local climates, from the desert Southwest to the rainforests of the Pacific--provided they have a proper understanding of the materials and practiced careful construction. The few thousand straw bale homes built in North America in the last decade are generally proving to be durable and comfortable. And strawbale’s user-friendly construction techniques can empower tentative owner-builders to get involved with building their own dream home.

This is also a house that considers seven generations. Unlike most manufactured building materials, straw is very low in "embodied energy"--the energy required to harvest, process and deliver a material to market. And combined with solar orientation, natural plasters, daylighting, and appropriate ventilation, a straw bale home blends energy efficiency and aesthetics with a healthy indoor environment. It seems that this new/old building technology is poised to enter mainstream consciousness.

So, what does a straw-bale house look like? The answer is truly--what ever you want. From southwestern "Santa Fe style," to north-country alpine approaches, to sleek urban designs, today’s architects and owner-builders are thinking beyond the box and shaping the bale module in response to climate, regional traditions and to suit their personal esthetic preferences. Look within to discover a wide spectrum of design ideas, plus building insights and hindsights from all across North America. The preferred house of the 21st century may just be a straw-bale home.

Book Review--from Su Casa Magazine--Autumn 2003

The New Strawbale Home probably answers every question a prospective home builder might have when contemplating straw construction. Author Catherine Wanek has been a key figure in the straw bale construction revival, which began in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Arizona and New Mexico. With its claims for sustainability, low environmental impact, healthy interior environment, and community building, straw bale construction is as much a political statement and lifestyle commitment as it is a choice of building material. The New Strawbale Home cheerleads for these aspects of building with straw, but it also delivers information by the ton on how to do it. It’s not quite a step-by-step how-to manual, but it’s detailed enough--complete with floor plans--to get you pretty far down the road to stacking bales. And since straw bale has risen to its current popularity on a wave of enthusiasm and success among do-it-yourself owner/builders, this glossy book, which lacks the hands-on detail of DIY manifesto, may provide a bridge to those who want information to evaluate but will hire a home builder to do the work.

Perhaps most impressive about the selection of homes in the book is the diversity of design and geographic location they represent. People have built with straw everywhere, from the arid Southwest to the drenched Northwest, from the Deep South to Canada. The homes range from familiar Santa Fe style to Arts and Crafts, modern eclectic, and Adirondack lodge designs. The common trait seems to be plastered exterior walls and overhanging roofs--you’ve got to keep that straw dry! Even if you decide you don’t want to build with straw, this book might be worth buying for the design ideas and floor plans.