Why Wouldn't You Learn To Build With Straw Bales?

Although straw bale building is nothing new and has piles of research behind its benefits to its inhabitants and the environment, bringing it to modern home owners in a bizarre economy takes the focus and iron will that only Joyce and her experience can bring.

Joyce is no stranger to regular folk questioning the use of natural building materials and using straw bales to build a house. It's constant. Sometimes, the questioning is only natural--harmless. Other times, it's accusatory. But Joyce is ready with no-nonsense, thoroughly-researched answers. And if you are interested at all in pulling a community of people together to build your house out of the ground (a bale-raising), you should take her class at Southeast Community College in July (page 19 for the class description, and page 40 for the pre-registration form). AND hire Joyce to consult all the way through the process--from design to job site. There are a lot of bullies along the journey that you will encounter with ideas like this. And Joyce is not afraid. :)

The class begins right where you hope it will: the beginning. We all try to imagine the pioneers of Nebraska telling us the secrets of survival on a lonely, romantic prairie. How did they do it? There are straw bale houses still standing, built around the beginning of the 20th century, all over the state. She's visited them in person in most cases, and can tell you how they have lasted. She also offers a tour of these sites periodically through the year: http://www.strawhomes.com/sban/tour/tour.html

We saw slides of the Rowe Sanctuary outside of Kearney, the Prairie Hill Learning Center outside of Roca, the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, and so many more--and the designs range from traditional to very modern.

There are just a handful of "retrofits" around the state, and my favorite was a Liquor store, destroyed by a tornado, and rebuilt by the children of the owners as a gorgeous Saloon with exposed, glossy Red Cedar beams and concrete floors. It's a Sunday drive from Lincoln to "Angel's Strawbale Saloon" on HWY 281 (you really must scroll down to the pictures at the bottom of the site).

Then, she gets into the "Nitty-Gritty:" the how-to's. There is no one answer to how to connect bales together, how to buy a bale, or how to build its roof. How do you wire your home to code? How do you plumb a strawbale house? There are a million ways to build a house. Although she won't have enough time in this life to know them all, it seems she stretches as far as she can to find them, traveling all over the world to compare ideas from other international experts and take note of their methods. And she has her favorites.

And her journals are filled with as many different ideas as she and her colleagues can present, test, and promote. She comes to the class with inspiring natural materials that she encourages everyone to purchase so that the prices drop and the distributors continue to produce them: everything from straw-packed "particle" board wrapped in brown paper, to tongue-in-groove cork flooring, to siding made of cement and plywood.

And the class ends with more modern designs that range from small, one-person projects like sheds to large three-story complexes.

It's a six hour class, and I felt like the time flew too quickly--mainly because of the sense of exhilaration and personal empowerment that only learning new and innovative solutions to our problems can bring.

Sign up for the class, and in the meantime, buy some journals, and read some free articles on the blog.

It's very natural to wonder how it's possible to live a modern existence in a seemingly antiquated building method. But methods HAVE evolved since the early 1900's. But don't just take our word for it--ask your questions here! :)