Straw Bale House Something To Puff About Material Makes House Quiet, Well-Insulated

From the outside, Bascom Palmer’s new house is a Northwest classic: cedar shingles, rock and logs.

Inside, the construction is straw.

Straw bales are stacked inside the partly finished living room. More bales line the walls, held in place by steel rods and mesh.

When the 2,500-square-foot house is completed, it will incorporate 380 bales.

Plaster eventually will hide the straw from view. But the bales will give the house 18-inch-thick walls - superior insulation from noise and North Idaho winters.

“The two most important things are the looks and the feeling inside - the massive walls and how quiet it is,” said Palmer, a retired developer.

“It’s amazing. If someone’s in the bedroom, you yell, and they still don’t hear you.”

Three years ago, Palmer and his wife, Terri, were ready to build their dream retirement house on 100 acres east of Sandpoint.

Plans changed when Palmer mentioned straw bale homes to James Carhart, a Sandpoint designer and builder of custom homes.

“I was almost embarrassed to bring it up,” Palmer said.

But Carhart also had read about straw bale homes. Both men were intrigued by the concept.

Carhart laid aside the first plans he’d drawn up for the Palmers’ retirement home. The two men built a guest house of straw bales on Palmer’s property instead.

Carhart designed the guest house using modified post and beam construction. The outside is covered with cedar-shingle siding. The inside has a Southwest adobe look, with deep set windows and plastered walls.

Palmer built the 540-square-foot guest house for $13,000.

Even more impressive than the construction bill is the heating bill, Palmer said. The guest house heats for less than $1 per day in the winter, even when occupied.

“We liked it so well that we decided to use straw bales in our house,” Palmer said.

Carhart was taken too. He has designed five straw bale buildings since the Palmers’ guest house including the I.P.S. Tack and Feed in Sandpoint.

The feed store is a metal pole building, a type of building notoriously difficult to heat. But with the straw as insulation, manager Lianne Samalik seldom needs to turn on the thermostat.

Straw as a building material sometimes draws snickers.

Carhart gets lots of comments about the “Three Little Pigs.” People also wonder about mice building nests in the straw, and fire safety.

Properly sealed, the walls are rodent-free, Carhart said. And the bales are so dense that setting them on fire is like trying to burn a Spokane phone book.

Straw bale construction developed in Nebraska’s sand hills around the turn of the century. The ground was too crumbly to build sod houses, so farmers used their automatic balers to create a new construction material.

The technique underwent a revival in the late 1980s, due to its environmentally friendly image.

That’s the aspect of straw bale construction that Carhart likes best. “You’re using a waste product to build a home,” he said.

And at $1 per bale, it’s hard to beat the price, he added.

Palmer estimates that it will cost between $100,000 and $112,500 to build his retirement home - about half of what a similarly sized conventional home would cost.

The savings comes partly from using straw bales, and partly because he has not hired a contractor, but is overseeing the work himself.

The house has a den, kitchen, living room and bedroom downstairs. The upstairs features a quilting loft for Palmer’s wife.

Palmer hopes to move in before Christmas.

After three years of changing plans, “We’re on the last straw now,” he said, and chuckled.