Chapter 5: The Straw Bale Decision

After Dan Smith mentioned straw bale construction, which was a logical approach to meet our design aspirations and goals, we did a little research and further thinking:

• Visited a straw bale building, the Presentation Center, in Los Gatos
• Researched straw bale construction on the web and read a book
• Considered the Advantages and Limitations
  

In this chapter, I'll tell you about what we learned, and describe some results -- what it is like living in a straw bale house today.

The Presentation Center
The Presentation Center LEED Certified welcome center and dining hall is a straw bale building designed by DSA.  It is part of a 67 acre facility in the redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, just west of Los Gatos, California.  The center offers meeting and dining space for up to 200 people. The setting creates a retreat; it's a nonprofit ministry of the Sisters of the Presentation. 

While I don't think we knew it then, we essentially made the straw bale decision that hot August Saturday.  The welcome center sits in the blazing sun, on a hilltop, with no shade, yet when we entered the building, we changed climates. The cool interior reminded me of old adobe buildings I'd toured in my childhood and brought back that sense of awe at being inside these special places surrounded by deep walls. Even the outside sunshine seemed softer now and more welcoming.

Our guide was proud of the center's accomplishment, and also praised DSA. She particularly mentioned how great Dan Smith had been to work with – so calm, thoughtful, attentive, and a great listener to their needs, wants, and concerns.

The center has two features that we liked but later during design abandoned.  One of these is a living roof.

In this picture it was newly planted; it would be interesting to see it now.  During design we realized that this type of roof didn't make sense for us because our roof is not visible except by air (plane or helicopter), and this type of roof is more expensive and requires some maintenance.  If our location and needs were different, I still think they are very interesting.


The other feature was their beautiful hot water collectors.

The copper tubes inside glass were lovely and were used as shade as well. When we saw them we thought we would do this as well.  Yet they weren't practical for our design, and they were quite expensive, so this was an early cost trade-off. 


Our Further Research
We found some information on the web, but not as much as you can find today, and much was centered on a do-it-yourself approach, which we weren't interested in. 

Most of our research came from reading a book that is still in publication today, The Straw Bale House, Steen, Steen, Bainbridge & Eisenberg.  My sister gave me the book when I mentioned straw bale – she has a log home with solar and wind power (off grid). As I look back on this journey, I realize that my sister's earlier adoption of these technologies fueled my interest and gave me confidence that they could work. 

In particular, the book has a photo section in the middle, and I looked at these pictures again and again both back in 2005 and while we built the house.  In fact I used various sections of the book as reference for various stages we went through.  It explained some things that initially seemed obscure to me, like:

• 3 string versus 2 string bales
  (relates to size and the width of the walls; we used 2 string, 18” bales, and our walls are about 22” thick after you add the lath and plaster). 
  
• How walls, doors, and windows are managed
• plastering and types of plaster – a section that I kept reading
• An introduction to straw bale culture, and notably the concept of a truth window
  

Telling the Truth
When we visited the presentation center, our guide proudly showed us their truth window.  A truth window is a framed, glass-covered gap in the interior plaster that allows you to see the straw – essentially proving that you are telling the truth about your straw bale construction. I found this a bit corny in this first encounter, but the idea grew on me. 

If someone asked me to explain why people do this, well, it seems to me that part of the attraction to putting in a truth window is because owners and builders of straw bale buildings can.  Imagine what a window into the innards of a stick built house would look like?  It is fun to show off our truth window to visitors, and it feels right to me that it is there.

Straw Bale Advantages and Disadvantages

In our first meeting with DSA (which I'll describe in Chapter 6), we discovered that straw bale construction is generally more expensive, unless you do it yourself. 

The bales are essentially free. We bought ours directly from a rice farmer in California's Central Valley – paying only for the transportation costs for removal of a waste product.  Nicely environmental! 

The expense is due to the expertise, materials, and skill to build the walls -- post and beam construction, fitting the bales into the walls (compressing them), lath to support the plaster, and  complex plaster rendering.  This decision also limited our selection of potential builders. 

In our web research, we found two cost advantages mentioned: (a) the do-it-yourself approach, wherein the authors claim this is an inexpensive way to build a house, and (b) various statistics about how much you will save over time on heating and cooling your home. 

What I didn't see was the advantage of the aura of a straw bale building, which remained with both of us long after our visit to the Presentation Center. I think only excessive cost would have turned us away because of that feeling, that distinctive atmosphere from being within those thick walls, looking out through those deep windows, and feeling that calm climate within the building.  Being inside a straw bale building captured our minds. Although we didn't rewrite our goals, in essence a straw bale home had been added to the list.  

 
Results 

First statistically --
I've been recording outside temperatures since December 2007, and started recording inside temperatures in May 2008.  Here is a graph (fahrenheit) that depicts the average monthly variation between May 2008 and September 2009. Our house is peach color (darker outside, lighter inside) and so it seemed obvious to color our zone peach. 

Key:
Blues show outside fahrenheit temperatures below the house temperature.
Reds show outside fahrenheit temperatures above the house temperature.
Peach shows the range in fahrenheit temperature within the house.
The dotted line boxes show when the heat pumps are active – we use a geothermal system to heat our floors in winter.  Last year we turned these on in mid December and off in early April by setting the thermostat to 55 degrees fahrenheit.

Notes:

• The graph is set up from January to December, so it overlaps to show figures for May 2008 through September 2009.
• The monthly averages hide the peaks and valleys:
  We've had 6 days at 100+ fahrenheit outside – mostly in 2008.  For these peaks the house high was 80-81 fahrenheit.
  Temperatures rarely drop below 30 fahrenheit outside.  The house doesn't want to go below 60.  We had a particularly bad storm the first month we were here, temperatures plunged and we were without power for 20 hours.  The house still didn't drop below 60. 
  

Impressionistically --
This straw bale house is extremely solid and seems to create its own environment.  It is like a peach colored cave, with many windows that look out into a beautiful green forest, with constantly changing patterns of light and cloud, moon/stars, sun/rain, occasional snow.  It is always changing outside, but fairly consistent inside. 

There are no drafts in winter.  Even with wind outside well above 70 mph**, inside there was no air movement or whistling noise.  If we didn't have windows, we wouldn't know what was going on outside. 

It is especially surprising in times of change (fall, spring), because no heater air or noise comes on or shuts down and nothing happens to remind us that it is now colder or warmer outside than inside, versus the many months of contrary expectations.  My peach cave is constant!

**The central valley wind was clocked at 70 mph and the wind at the top of the Sierras was 150 – we are halfway between the two.

 

Chapter 4 Aesthetics, Aspirations, Art, & Architectects: Finding DSA

What I believe now is that when you select an architect, you are choosing:

• An artist whose work inspires you,
• A partner you can work with, and
• An expert who can bring new ideas, knowledge, possibilities, and solutions to you.

There is also a lot of solid hard work as part of this capability. I cannot imagine the effort, focus, and processes that turn dreams into realities and produce a complex building. A big part of this is the builder's work, and working with the builder as well. Nevertheless, at this point in our selection process we were assuming basic architect capability in anyone we would consider, and so the ideal architect seemed like a blend of artistic talent, technical expertise, and interpersonal style/skill. We found a perfect match with DSA (Dan Smith & Associates, Berkeley, CA).

As detailed in Chapter 3, we had completed our design aspirations. In addition we'd assembled a list of topics for phone interviews with potential architects, including:

• Sharing our design aspirations and asking about their relevant experience.
• Discussing the size (residential mid-size), scope (our fantasy budget), and timing.
• Requesting samples of their work. (Many had websites, but we wanted to visit a site.)
• Inquiring what they would gain from working with us. (Do our interests align well with their goals?).
• Asking who would work on our project.
• Seeking any information on costs.

We also had 4 key deciding factors:

• Are they listening?
• Do their responses inspire confidence that they have the capability we're seeking?
• Do they seem to be thoughtfully looking for a good match?
• Does it sound like our aspirations and interests will be important to them?

I had located 8 potential architects -- most seemed like a match to our interests (contemporary designs, energy independence); some were on the list because they were local. DSA was near the top of the list, and Dan Smith's responses in our phone interview created so much excitement that I didn't care if I talked to anyone else. Subsequent brief contact with others was not compelling.

Dan listens very well – during this first discussion and during our entire working relationship. The following are some core topics that we discussed in that first phone meeting on July 25, 2005; a meeting that jumped around and didn't exactly follow my script, yet exceeded my expectations. We talked for 0ver an hour, with growing enthusiasm on both sides.

Straw Bale Construction
Straw Bale Construction was featured on the DSA website and it was one of my first questions. We hadn't been thinking about a straw bale house; I'm not sure we had heard of them. Dan said that although they often design projects with other materials, they were featuring straw bale because it had been drawing a lot of interest.

Dan's firm is focused on a green approach, which means things like integrated photovoltaic (solar electric power), solar hot water systems, passive solar design for heating and cooling, minimized energy usage, and use of natural materials. Straw bale construction helps with efficiency (creates thermal mass) and uses natural material (a waste product from the production of rice), so it is an appealing construction material for a green design.

I'm sure you can imagine how this felt to me, since I had been arguing with our previous architect to simply consider what I called solar power, and here was Dan, throwing out terms such as photovoltaic (PV), and speaking authoritatively about various options. This contribution of new possibilities and ideas was to continue, and our resultant straw bale house incorporates things like a SIPS roof and geothermal power that we didn't know anything about before working with DSA.

Radiant Heat
Radiant Heat was one of our goals because both of us dislike the blowing hot dry air from the central forced air systems, and we also think it isn't healthy. We had been in houses with radiant floor heat, it felt very natural, and we were strongly interested -- it was in our goal statement.

Dan agreed that it is a superior heating solution, and also explained the critical relationship between design and insulation in making it more efficient and effective when also considering power needs.

He also brought forth the flip side of our temperature needs – cooling -- which is another advantage to straw bale because the thick bale walls add to the thermal mass. This means the house is resistant to temperature changes – easier to keep warm in winter and doesn't heat up quickly in summer. He said he had been designing straw bale houses without air conditioning, including one in California's hot Central Valley.

Money
While not a surprise, one challenge for us was that DSA expected to be paid hourly for their work, on a monthly basis, which meant that we needed to have these funds in place before any construction loan. Fortunately we had built up a reserve and we thought we'd be okay.

We also discussed construction costs, and this was less helpful. It is extremely difficult for an architect to predict costs to build – they're not in that business and, worse, they can't know what choices a client will make. The discussion made Dan nervous and he was careful to tell me that he couldn't predict. They can compare alternatives as we go through the design, and indicate which are more expensive, and thus help us include cost in our decision process.

As I mentioned, we started with something I'm now calling a fantasy budget. It was a range based on a little research about building costs and some hopeful thinking. We found it enormously difficult to get good cost information before we had a design. We eventually spent over 150% of the top of that range to build this house (ouch!) because (a) our budget was unrealistic, and (b) we made decisions, such as the geothermal system. I'll dedicate a future post to the geothermal system in particular, both technically and from a cost perspective. We debated about whether or not do this for agonizing months. It was our most radical decision.

Builder
Dan asked if we had identified a builder. He recommended that we involve a builder early in the process to get the builder's feedback during the design. This approach would mean contracting with that builder versus putting the plans out to bid, because the builder invests time and effort in helping with the design.

Green Architecture
DSA is particularly known for green architecture. When I talked with Dan they were in the finishing stages of a large dining hall at the Presentation Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This building has a living roof with an integrated PV system. It's a passive solar straw bale design and does not use air conditioning. They had just made it through a significant heat wave without a problem. Dan suggested that we visit them.

The Presenctation Center is LEED-Gold certified by the US Green Building Council. Dan asked if we were interested in LEED certification. While we probably had most of the same goals, I didn't see the advantage of a certificate. He said the certification process adds time and expense, which settled the question. (Our first example of a cost decision perhaps.)

Our Project and DSA
At that time Dan had over 20 years experience designing buildings and homes, and his practice was centered on green architecture. He was very interested in our design aspirations and goals, and felt that our project was a very good fit for his firm. This seemed obvious to me as he passionately described various green approaches. He was intrigued with the idea of doing a straw bale home with a modern design – most people who came to them for straw bale homes were interested in more traditional approaches. He was certain one of his project architects, Dietmar Lorenz, would love this challenge.

Next Steps

1. We would visit the Presentation Center. (More about this in my next chapter.)
   
   
2. We would send materials for review before a consultation meeting – the topographical survey, our design aspirations & goals, photos of the site, any articles or clippings we had of different houses or features that we liked. He encouraged us to send anything that appealed to us.
   
   One item I sent was a clipping from Sunset Magazine showing a bookshelf running up the side of a staircase. We're both readers, have a lot of books, and are always looking for places to put them.
   
   See the pictures here of our stairwell bookshelves! The picture on the left is looking down the stairs from the main floor, and the picture on the right is looking up those same stairs from the lower floor.
   
   
   
   Dietmar included these shelves in the plans. I hadn't known they made it (building a house is so complex; I couldn't track it all). Dietmar just doesn't lose the details!
   
   
3. We scheduled a visit to their office in Berkeley August 17, for a consultation during which they would sketch some initial ideas.
   
   
4. If all were agreed, Dan would write a contract after that session and they'd start to work.
   

I remember this first phone conversation so well because I emailed a summary to Ron. I couldn't describe how excited I was – didn't have the words. As I think back now, I guess it was like the anticipation at the start of a ride (roller coaster comes to mind), coupled with the relief and pleasure in finding someone who shined a light on our aspirations after what had seemed like a long time in darkness.

This roller coaster ride was going to increase in intensity over the following 30 months, gradually consuming all our free time.

More to come!

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