To Straw bale or not to Straw bale…

Building a home with straw bales is not for everyone. There are other great building systems to consider. How about ICF’s, Faswall, SIPs, Straw Clay, Hempcrete, Pumice-crete, just to name a few…

Most of the homes I design are straw bale homes. It is an amazing system with so many advantages, but for some, there are more disadvantages like moisture, location, or material and labor availability.

Over the past 20 years, I have designed well over 100 straw bale buildings, and in that time, I have designed many other types of buildings. Oftentimes, folks come to me wanting to build an alternative house, or anything but a conventional house. Sometimes they are set on a house built with Faswall, straw clay, or the latest trend, hempcrete. I am more than happy to work with these really interesting methods. But many times, they are set on building a straw bale home, and after a couple interviews, it becomes clear that straw bale may not be the best choice for them. Perhaps they live in a humid climate where it is not always the best environment for bales, or they live in an area where straw is hard to find, and more commonly, an area where it is extremely hard to find a contractor who is willing to build with straw bales.

It is good to keep all of these things in consideration. On several occasions, I have had to halt a project and convert a half completed set of straw bale plans to a Faswall or ICF set of plans. Recently, one of my clients had a finished set of straw bale plans, stamped and permitted, and spent 4 months looking for a contractor to help build her home. After all this time, she decided to have the plans converted into a set of conventional plan so she could build the house from foundation to roof all by herself. Another client several years ago, had a stamped and completed set of straw bale plans, but couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that they were building in the deep south and at the last minute, had me convert the plans to insulated concrete forms or ICF to take the moisture issue off of the table.

Straw bale is my primary design system but I am open to any of the alternative systems out there. It is best to consider all of these systems before deciding which is best for you. I am more than willing to answer any questions you have to help guide you through this process. Thank you for reading.