This house will blow you away
CLEARFIED TWP — The Garcia-Bish family is not worrying about the big bad wolf blowing down their straw house.
They built it themselves in 2009 and know it can withstand just about anything but an overdose of moisture.
Shortly after their second child was born, Todd, 42, and Shayne, 38, realized they were outgrowing their cozy Cape Cod home and would need to either add on or build a new one. After much research they decided they wanted some wide open spaces and a house that would have minimal impact on the environment.
They opted to build a straw bale home, which included cisterns for water and composting toilets.
When possible, they opted for local supplies which benefited neighbors and kept transportation costs — and their carbon footprint — to a minimum.
They were able to purchase the straw, the roof, the timber for framing, the sand and clay for the plaster, and the windows within a 50-mile radius.
The Faswall blocks for the foundation came from South Carolina and the cisterns for their basement came from Canada.
“There are many ways that people can help take care of what God has created. Building an energy-efficient, nontoxic home is one way that our family has made a difference,” said Todd, who is the environmental education director at the Lutherlyn camp near Prospect.
Their 7- and 4-year-old children don't seem to mind the nursery rhyme cliché or worry about the big bad wolf much, the couple said.
Todd and Shayne spent five years living in a straw bale home at Lutherlyn, so they had some idea of what they were getting into.“Todd did much of the research and had investigated many of the options for water collection and solar heating,” said Shayne.The process began by purchasing the 30 acres of property, which they named Haven Homestead.The architect was Chris Leininger, who is also a professor in the Sustainable Systems program at Slippery Rock University. P&W Construction did the actual framing for the structure and then installed the big blue roof.“Picture a picnic pavilion with a big blue roof and that was what the initial stage looked like,” said Shayne.“The foundation ‘blocks' of the house made by Faswall are actually created from reclaimed wood chips and concrete, which form into a very hard material but are lighter than cement blocks,” she said. Some of the materials used were purchased as salvage items from Lutherlyn.“It was important for us to use things that were good enough for a second life. We wanted to minimize the amount of impact on natural resources,” she added.“Todd was driving by a barn one day that was being dismantled. He stopped and talked to the people doing the work and after having some of the wooden beams inspected, we purchased those and put them to use in our place,” she said.Because of the wall construction the couple had to plan where they were going to be hanging things.“Wooden blocking had to be installed any place that we wanted to hang anything substantial on the wall, like cabinets or fixtures,” she said. Because of the wall matter they were able to create a few niches into the wall. All the windows have deep rounded window sills the width of the straw bale.“Everything in our house is very rounded which most people find comforting,” said Shayne.
Due to the organic matter of the building material the biggest threat is rot.“Everything has to be tight and dry while you are building. I think that is why you don't see too many here in Western Pennsylvania because the weather can be pretty damp,” she said.The straw grown for the house was part of the Food Resource Bank Project in the Saxonburg area.“Farmers raise crops on land that would otherwise not be used. The proceeds from the crops go to fund farming initiatives in developing countries,” explained Todd.The walls are covered with several layers of earth on the inside and out and the overhanging roof helps to keep exterior moisture from collecting near the walls.“We have a moisture meter which you can insert into the wall to check for moisture, if you suspect dampness,” said Shayne. “It looks similar to a heat probe used in the kitchen but it registers moisture,” she explained.The fix for damp walls is a messy project, but definitely doable. “If it happens, you just break into the wall and cut out the affected straw, air the area out, then replace it with new straw and re-plaster and paint,” said Shayne, who has thankfully been spared that process.It took about two weekends to stack the bales for the first floor.The bales, or blocks are covered in stress areas with chicken wire to help with the plastering process, which is a quite an ordeal. Walls are covered with a first coat that is a half inch thick and then a second coat, with the third coat being the one to finish it with color.The first two coats are an earth plaster they mixed themselves in a small cement mixer and applied by hand, not with a trowel.“The plaster is one part sand, one part brown clay and one part chopped straw mixed with water to just the right consistency,” said Shayne, who was the master “mudder” on the project.“Plastering is called mudding and though it was a lot of work, I really enjoyed the process,” she said.The outermost layer comes last. It's a skim coat, the thickness of a credit card. They used a product produced by American Clay which is applied with a trowel. They were able to mix powders into the plaster so their walls take on various colors as opposed to painting.The plaster can take weeks to dry.“The process is dependent on the weather. You can't attempt it when the weather is below 40 degrees so it took our family and friends about a year and a half to complete the 2000-square-foot structure inside and out.” explained Shayne of the home, which cost about $180,000 to build.
Not only is the structure of the house planned with sustainability in mind but also everything from the water, sewage and appliances were installed to reduce the family's carbon foot print.The Garcia-Bishes partially heat their home with passive solar, in addition to the radiant floor. Though one might not think Western Pennsylvania would offer enough sunny days, they rarely have to use alternative heat in the fall and spring.“On a sunny day in winter no matter how cold it is outside it can get quite warm in the house,” Shayne said.Their backup radiant floor is fueled by propane but it is not used often, mostly only at night.In the future they plan to heat with a stone Finnish fireplace, which is safer for a straw house than you might think.“They have done pretty detailed studies and research which showed the density of the straw bales combined with sealing the bales with plaster, leaves no room for oxygen to collect which fires must have as fuel,” said Shayne.When it came to water, the only direction they looked was up.“We have cisterns in the basement that hold rainwater which comes from our big steel roof,” explained Shayne. Because the rainfall varies greatly in Western Pennsylvania, Todd plotted the rainfall over the past 100 years using the records of the National Weather Service.“He figured out that we'd need 6,000 gallons of water in the driest of years, so we purchased and installed four 1,500-gallon fiberglass tanks,” Shayne said.
According to Todd, 60 days was the longest record without significant rainfall, and 6,000 gallons would allow four people to carry on normal water consumption for two months.Rainwater collection saved the couple from having to drill a well, but there is a price to pay. They estimate the whole water collection and filtration process to cost about $6,500 to install.“The water goes through several filtration systems and requires upkeep monthly, but it beats have to lug bags of salt for a water softener,” said Shayne, who also doesn't have to worry about possible contamination of groundwater.No-flush composting toilets were installed in the house at a cost of $7,000. They are gravity-based with a fan that constantly pulls air through the composting chamber so odor doesn't build up.“We toss down some wood shavings occasionally but they are very low maintenance and as long as the fan works, there is no smell,” she explained.The family estimates monthly overhead for utilities at about $15.50 for water (filters and UV light), $70 for electricity and $149 for propane, used for the radiant floor, hot water and stovetop.A masonry fireplace, under construction, should eliminate most of the heating cost.
Recycled treasures and treats can be found throughout the house. The insulation in the basement was reused from a church that was renovating; there is slate flooring from an old barn roof and even redwood paneling from a 1950s cabin at Lutherlyn that was being torn down.“We even tried to use the timber we had to clear for the house. Cherry trees on the site were converted into our interior posts and kitchen cabinets. Todd made use of the hawthorne trees by making a staircase railing from the wood,” said Shayne.“We could never have done this on our own,” she added, expressing gratitude for pioneers in the straw bale community and help from family and friends.“Our mission in sharing our story is to get people to think outside the conventional box in terms of how they can apply sustainability to their lives,” she said.
