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Here’s an opening. I am trying to get a clear line on exactly what you are looking for from me these days. The economy and the entire global picture has changed so drastically in the last few months, that I want to check in and make sure I am providing you all with the best information possible.
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photo from www.howthingswork.com

I heard on NPR yesterday that Exxon/Mobil posted the highest second quarter profit of any corporation in history. ANY corporation EVER! Somehow this seems crazy when the cost of fuel keeps rising and the average consumer is struggling in a failing economy. They posted nearly a $12 BILLION profit in the second quarter alone.
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You’re not the only one. I have a poster on my wall that I want to share with you all. It helps me remember that when my first efforts fall short, I don’t give up. It gives examples of influential men who started out as less than influential! I have always been someone who pushes through to the end and strives to accomplish what I believe is possible, no matter how hard it seems in the moment. Building a straw bale house in an area where no bale homes exist can be an uphill battle. Building inspectors, plan checkers, permitting departments, insurance companies, and more can stand in the way of your dream; but only if you let them.
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There is a good chance you will have a lot of straw left over when you complete your house. Most of it, if you did your estimating right, will be in the form of loose straw. You will be amazed at just how much loose straw is produced on a building site. As I have said earlier, this loose straw is dangerous to the site as it poses the highest fire risk of any building material on site: dry, loose piles of straw! Be sure to move it away from your structure. But what to do with it all?
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My family works hard to live a green life. I build and teach others how to build super efficient straw bale homes. We drive a car that runs on biodiesel and gets 40 mpg. We raise our own veggies, chickens (for eggs, fertilizer and meat). We buy beef from a local man who raises about 5 cows a year on his land. My kids are reminded to turn off the lights behind them and keep the door closed when the weather is too hot or cold outside. All the stuff that anyone concerned about the environment and state of affairs might do. But how do we balance living a green life with just living a regular life and enjoying some of the things that are not considered green, but are still fun?
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Last summer, an F-5 tornado ripped through the City of Greensburg, Kansas and destroyed much of the City. Officials there have made a commitment to rebuild their city using green technologies. As it stands now, they plan to use conventional construction methods and simply add green features. I would like to see something bigger. I would like to see the City embrace a whole new style of construction for their rebuild: straw bale construction.
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I recently heard that some, if not all, straw and hay out of the Pacific Northwest has a mold spore in it. The question that accompanied this information is how to counter act the affects of the mold on the bales so they can be used for constriction.
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I receive several emails a month from people who need help with the process of finding land, working with municipalities, and building their straw bale home. For many individuals, this is the first time they have ever ventured out into the World of Green Construction, and the implications of building green can affect the approach they take to finding land and working with the local authorities in order to create the dream home they desire. I have written blog entries in the past about evaluating your site, but may not have mentioned information about working with local planning departments.
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I am amazed that more people are not jumping onto the Straw Bale Construction band wagon as I continue to watch the price of energy rise, month after month. I heard yesterday that the average cost of energy in the United States increased over 18% in 2007 alone. That is the cost of fuel, as we have all seen and felt, and electricity. Heating and cooling our homes makes up a huge part of the energy consumption in the United States, up to 40% by some counts.
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I often tell people the first step in building a straw bale house, or any house for that matter, does not actually take place during construction but rather in the design room. In truth, this is not quite accurate. For a really good design, the first steps must take place in the field during site evaluation.

Every site is different and therefore requires attention to different details. For example, does your building site have drainage concerns? Where does the sun travel during the day? How much organic material and fill will need to be removed from the site prior to construction? These and other questions like these need to be addressed early on in the design process in order to yield a home design that truly incorporates the house into the site. In the following video, I walk you through a sample site evaluation. This evaluation is obviously truncated for time, but gives you an idea of what is involved in performing a site evaluation. Take as much time as you can spare for the evaluation. You will be happy you did in the end.
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Here is a quick primer on the subject sparked by the following email I recently received. Thanks Josh for the question. This may be obvious to some, but I am no longer surprised by how many people have this very same question. I often hear people use the wrong name for this technology. I hear them talk about hay bale construction or strawbail. The misspelling I can deal with, but the inclusion of hay in the idea of home construction is a problem. In fact, I even heard a builder, claiming to be a straw bale builder, describe his model “hay bale house” when I spoke to him at his booth at the Green Building Expo in San Francisco last year! YIKES!!! I hope that the builders out there know the difference and understand the importance of working with straw. For those many others who have the same question, here’s the breakdown. Actually, here’s the original email question first, then the breakdown.
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I recently received a comment from a gentleman in Missouri who told me “…recently our area of Missouri approved a grant for the construction of straw bale homes offering a $15,000 construction reimbursement for the building of straw bale homes…” Wow! That is a great deal and something I would like to learn more about.
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There are a lot of myths out there about straw bale construction. There are people who will tell you that homes built with straw bales will encourage rodents and other pests. They may also warn you against the high likelihood of fire in a straw bale home. Perhaps they would even go so far as to suggest that straw bale houses cannot hold their value over time. The naysayers are around, and that is not likely to change anytime soon; however, you can find out the facts for yourself by watching this video below. Don’t rely on those who would speak false information as if it were truth. My goal with http://www.StrawBale.com is to get the truth about straw bale construction in front of as many people as possible.

The above video is a short clip about the myths of straw bale construction. It quickly sums up some of the biggest myths. Like those mentioned above, and counters them with facts about the reality of straw bale construction. At the end, there is a 3 minute (or so) slide show with music through some beautiful straw bale homes. I hope you enjoy it.

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I want to live in a country that supports Green Construction and healthy living. I want to see more people building green homes and driving efficient vehicles. I want to see the health and strength of my community grow. That is going to take action, not just desire.

Today, the price of oil went up by more than $2 per barrel at its peak. I remember when oil prices were approaching $60 and I thought that was high. Today the price landed at a new high of $88.20 per barrel before retreating a little. As I watched the financial report about this upward trend, I was saddened by the reporter’s comments about the average American consumer and our impact on the entire planet.
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Do you live in a Tropical Rain Forest?

I am a big believer in the merits of straw bale construction. That’s probably obvious by now; however, there is one major drawback to working with bales: climate conditions. Bale homes are ideal for dry and mostly dry climates, acceptable in wet climates, and difficult to deal with in very wet and humid climates.

The big demon is not water, in the form of rain at least. In stead, it is humidity. Rain can be handled with proper design so even the wettest climates can accommodate straw bale structures. Humidity, on the other hand, cannot easily be designed out of a structure. It pervades everything and gets into everything. A bale house can stay dry from rain and still be saturated with moisture inside the plaster due to the acclimation of the bales to the area’s relative humidity. Everything eventually settles on a moisture content that is in direct relation to the relative humidity of its surroundings. Therefore, if the humidity is high, so too is the moisture content of your bread, your clothes, and your bales!

Let me give you an example, I used to live in Northern California, where humidity was often very high due to the coastal fog. My wife put her leather boots under our bed for a month and when she took them out, they were covered in green mold! Our house seemed fine and we surely did not expect to see that kind of mold anywhere near the inside of our house. But, the space under the bed is dark and has limited air movement, kind of like the space in between your layers of plaster.

What to do? Well, you must first consider if your climate is right for straw bale construction. If you have really high humidity and very little dry season each year, you may want to consider something other than bale construction. Another option is to consider mechanical help. If you install a whole house de-humidifier, you can minimize the amount of moisture in your house and therefore in your bales. Remember that when pressurized under normal living conditions, air moves out through the walls. If the air is dry, it is safe to pass through the walls. Systems like this can be installed into your HVAC system, if you have one, or can be stand alone units utilizing 4″ duct work.

Remember to design and build for the water and humidity. You not only need to design to keep water out, but also to allow it to escape should it get in (nature has a way of blowing even the greatest plans!) Plan for both, and you will be okay. Nevertheless, if you live some where that you think is too risky, ask for advice and then make whatever decision you feel is best around the use of bales in your home. And know that this is coming from some one who loves bale construction so I’m trying to talk you out of your dream!

September 29 & 30 – save the date!

John and Julie Ufkes are putting up a pole barn this summer, and wrapping it with straw bales this fall to keep their horses warm. They will be hosting a straw bale wall raising the last weekend of September, led by Dallas Green.

This is a free event, camping is available on site, and lunches will be provided. Please contact Julie for more information at jufkes@fairpoint.net.

Over the next few days I will be answering questions at this blog entry. Many of the questions will be from emails I received over the last few weeks (or more in some cases! Sorry for the delay.). You are welcome to post your questions here and I will answer them as I can. I look forward to hearing from you and clearing up any confusion you may have on specific areas of SB building.

I have noticed a major lull in blog comments over the last few weeks. I wonder if this is because I have been out of commission for a while, focusing almost entirely on my construction and consulting businesses. I have not posted since June 30th, and have not received any comments to publish in that same time period. I have received a bunch of emails and have yet to respond to them. If I get some interesting ones, I will post them here later on. The best way to communicate your questions is through this blog. If I get comments here, I publish them and answer them right away. Emails tend to wait until I can break free from my duties as a contractor and consultant. Those jobs come first as I have clients depending on me. So, that said, I hope to post new questions and answers here in the coming days and I hope to hear from you too. Let’s break the silence and talk straw bale!

Perhaps the most important aspect of any home construction project is a critical path. This is the time line that you must create for the completion of your home. The path is so important because it shows you exactly when things need to happen in order to keep the house on track for a desired completion date. This is the only way to ensure that the project does not go on forever! With a good critical path, you can inform sub contractors when they will be needed on site long before they actually need to be there. Of course, when you miss specific deadlines, it will affect the rest of the critical path so be sure to update it frequently. Whenever you update the path, be sure to contact all affected parties (subs and suppliers) and give them new dates for their work. your subs and suppliers will appreciate the amount of lead time and detail you are giving them and it will make the whole job easier to handle and predict.

Creating a critical path takes a lot of understanding about what is involved in the home construction process and it also takes an understanding of how long each phase should take. Creating a critical path with no building experience is not a good idea so be sure to hire some one who has the experience you need to create a realistic critical path for your job. Editing the critical path as adjustments are made is more simple and can be handled by anyone with basic computer knowledge and a grasp on the construction process at hand.

I offer critical path services for those of you interested in building your home with a guideline and map to success. The path is often offered as part of my consulting services, and I also offer them as individual packages for home builders. I can’t say enough how important these paths are so if you don’t know how to create one yourself and you don’t want to hire me, then hire a contractor in your local area who knows how to build with bales to create a path for you. It is well worth the investment!

I have received a lot of messages in recent days asking about the cost of straw bale construction. The basic question is: what does it cost per square foot to build a bale home? It is all but impossible for me to answer this question because there are so many factors involved in calculating cost. What region is the home built in? What design features does it have?
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