Straw Bale House

A Straw Bale House

What's? and Why's?

It's not just a fairy tale, but, literally, it is a house made of straw.

Some of the best reasons for using straw bales to build a house are aesthetic. A plastered straw bale wall is beautiful.They seem to live. The walls surface ungulates, and if finished with plaster or stucco with the color mixed through out, these walls can really come alive with a deep rich feeling. Walking in a straw bale house can feel almost like entering a religious sanctum. There is something special about the super thick walls that make the sound inside a straw bale house intimate and quiet. The nature of straw bales, make for opportunities for special window seats within the deep walls. French casement windows can open inward and lay within the thick walls. It's also easy to form straight or curving walls. The structural system, which stands either just inside or just outside the straw bale walls, provides a beautiful exposed structural framework.

There are plenty of fantastic environmentally friendly reasons for using straw bales to build. Straw is a waste material that is not edible by animals or rodents. When a cereal crop is grown such as oat, wheat, or rye, the stock left over after the grain is removed is straw. It is typically either burned or used on roadways during construction supporting silt fences. It's basically a thin hollow tube of cellulose. If it's bundled tightly together in a bale and stacked into a wall it provides fantastic insulation from sound, cold, or heat.

Once straw in stacked the exterior is stuccoed and the interior plastered. The stucco and plaster bond directly with the straw and create a rigid extremely strong wall. Unlike a conventional wall in which insulation is interrupted by 2x4 framing, a straw bale wall offers continuous insulation. A typical 2x4 wall offers R13 insulation and the 2x4 act as a thermal bridge transporting cold into New England homes. Straw bale walls offer a continuous monolithic insulation of R30 to R40 value.

If you own a straw bale house you can feel good that your house is built with a super insulated envelope reducing heating and cooling cost and their impact on the environment. You can also be proud that your not wasting lumber harvested from trees that take decades to re-grow, but using straw which is often cut twice in a single season and otherwise is a waste material which might be burned. If you choose to take on the responsibility for paying the future environmental costs of the energy we use to heat and light your home, you might make the extra effort to pay the additional costs of using alternative energy and heat sources such as solar, wind, or geothermal you can make a quantifiable difference in reducing pollution and greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Plus you'll be supporting that which desperately needs developing.

People have been making houses of straw in the United States since settlers moving across the Midwest found it was their only available building material with few trees to be found. A few of those original buildings are still standing.

Today straw bale houses are popular in California, Arizona, and New Mexico. So popular that they are incorporated into the building codes of those states. Straw bale walls are as thick as two feet and offer tremendous insulation. So during hot summers they provide cool houses reducing air conditioning needs and during winter months keep the warmth in. In those arid climates, it is not a problem to keep straw bales dry throughout the building process. Building straw bale houses in New England calls for different building techniques in order to keep the straw bales dry though out the process.

Common questions about straw bale homes

What if they get wet?

Pretty much the same thing happens to straw that would happen to wood framing and insulation. If it gets wet and stays wet it will rot just like 2x4 framing in typical construction.

It is essential therefore that when the straw bales are put in the wall they are dry. For this reason in a climate like New England has, it is wise to build and finish your roof first. This means first building a structural frame work of, timber, steel, or cast concrete.

Won't they burn easily?

Actually no. They are much more fire proof than your typical home. Straw bales are densely packed and not enough oxygen can get to their interiors for them to burn well. They are encased by an inch of plaster on the interior and an inch of stucco on the exterior. It takes fire much longer to burn through these 24" thick walls than conventional framing.

Why aren't there more straw bale houses around?

Well, they're coming. There are currently 3 states with building codes adapted for straw bale construction (California, Arizona, New Mexico). In New England there are many owner-built straw bale homes. Building in New England requires engineers to approve and stamp plans for local building departments. In New England it is also essential to build a structural system and roof first in order to keep bales dry in our wet weather. The building industry is slow to change, and does not adapt well to new practices. Straw bale homes are labor intensive to build; an industry with an eye on profits and bottom lines is unlikely to move in that direction.

For a small builder who cares less about profits and more about building in an environmentally responsible way as well as building something special and beautiful building straw bale homes is a perfect fit.