Straw-bale houses are durable, super energy-efficient and a less expensive way to build — pity the three little pigs didn’t know about them
Sherry Noik-Bent
Sun
CREDIT: Peter Redman, National Post Glen Hunter and Joanne Sokolowski’s straw-bale home is all windows, …
CREDIT: Peter Redman, National Post …with a stylish interior that resembles a city loft.
Building a home out of straw didn’t work out so well for the three little pigs. But construction with straw has come a long way, producing homes that are super energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and cost the same as, or even less than, conventional homes. And best of all, they look good.
David and Anne-Marie Warburton had been looking for a cost-efficient building method that was in line with their environmental values. Shortly after they first saw a straw-bale structure in New Mexico, they met architect Linda Chapman, who suggested it for their home.
“There are no accidents,” says David Warburton. “If we hadn’t seen that wall in New Mexico, we probably wouldn’t have gone with it. We had that 30-second glimpse at a straw-bale wall; we knew what she was talking about.”
Their two-storey, 2,460-square-foot home near Orangeville, Ont., shows how a straw-bale home can be designed in the style of an Adirondack chalet, with its colourfully painted gables on a steep-pitched roof and interior nooks and alcoves. The decor is casual comfort, suitable for a family that includes two kids and three dogs and an eclectic collection of accessories.
Still, David Warburton recognizes this atypical building method may not be for everyone. “People seem to fall on one or the other side of the fence about this kind of building: Either they get madly excited or they just don’t get it.”
The walls are made of bales of tightly compressed straw — an abundant and renewable resource that would otherwise be discarded as waste — stacked as building blocks, then plastered or stuccoed on both the interior and exterior. Building this way gives the structure exceptional strength, so nothing will blow this house down.
The bales offer great “sculptability,” allowing the homeowners to carve arched doors, built-in bench seats and deep-framed windows into their 25-inch thickness.
Using 800 bales at a cost of about $1.50 apiece, the Warburtons saved tens of thousands on the cost of construction materials. And superior thermal insulation provided by bale walls has saved them a great deal in annual energy costs since they moved in in 1998.
Their experience is backed up by research from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that shows bale homes typically use 25 to 45 per cent less heating and cooling energy than their frame-walled equivalents.
The many advantages of straw-bale homes are drawing more people, according to the Ontario Straw Bale Building Coalition (OSBBC), which says more than 100 such homes were built in Ontario in the past five years. The non-profit OSBBC offers information and resources on straw-bale building at strawbalebuilding.ca.
But, as the Warburtons discovered, that didn’t mean it was smooth sailing. In order to obtain a mortgage on their home, they spent five years making their way down a list of banks before they were finally approved.
While the environmental and cost-saving benefits are what initially attracted this back-to-the-land baby boom couple, it was the flexibility of design that appeals to others.
That’s apparent in the contrast between the Warburtons’ rustic home and the ultra-modern one built by Glen Hunter and Joanne Sokolowski in Cavan, Ont., outside Peterborough, Ont. Finished in grey stucco, the home is distinguished by a 19-foot-high glass gallery that extends the entire length of the south elevation, topped by a sloping roof.
It’s a shocker, coming as it does at the end of a winding 110-metre gravel drive through cornfields.
“It just shows that you don’t have to have an adobe house when you have a straw-bale house,” Sokolowski says. “You can do anything with it.”
Inside, gleaming white walls were achieved with a mix of plaster and marble dust. Engineered-wood ceiling beams and columns delineate the spaces of the single-storey open layout into a living room, kitchen, child’s play area and home office, making it easy for Sokolowski to keep an eye on her two-year-old at all times. The master bedroom and baby’s nursery are tucked behind a long nine-foot-high bookcase. Sokolowski describes it as “almost like having a loft in the middle of the country.”
Indeed, urban loft dwellers would envy the super-sleek pendant fixtures that light up the gallery’s wall of windows at night.
Despite the striking differences between these two homes, both have a “truth window” — a cutout in the wall that shows the straw beneath. This is a feature of every straw-bale home, says Warburton, “for the skeptics who don’t quite believe.”
WEB SITES:
www.sustainableworks.ca
www.thelaststraw.org
www.bigbadwolf.ca
www.ecobuilding.org/lib/ebt/1999/bcstraw.htm
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
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