Welcome to Cardinal Bluff and Straw Bale Construction

Welcome to Straw Bale Construction at Cardinal Bluff.  My name is Richard Lorenz and I am located in the Ozarks Mountains of SW Missouri, USA. I serve as Strawbale Technical Specialist for Top of the Ozarks Resource Conservation & Development, Inc, representing the South Central Region of Missouri from offices located in Houston, MO.  This straw bale house program started January 2006, when Top of the Ozarks RC&D, Inc., working with the University of Missouri,  was given a grant from HUD to offer technical and financial assistance to builders of ten homes using straw bales as the walls.

We now have four houses framed and baled, one of which is plastered (stucco).  Five more are making daily progress.

Before I began working with this straw bale initiative (learn more at Straw Bale Construction at Cardinal Bluff), I confess to being a LOG guy.

I built several log homes in Wyoming and was absolutely convinced that I wanted to finally build one for myself.   Now, it has all changed and I am converted to straw bale construction and plan to build a straw bale home when I finish working with the people who are part of the present program to promote straw bale construction in Missouri.

I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures as much as all of us have enjoyed participating in them. Meanwhile, keep your bales dry! Richard

Knowledge is Money—To get the Value, Put the Knowledge to Use

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Richard

We are learning as we go in the straw bale construction

I have been assigned the title Straw bale Technical Specialist, but titles and knowledge are not always common virtues.  So the poor folks I am supposed to be helping are also teaching me.

Experience is definitely the best teacher. I have almost fifty years experience, many in building, but I still spend many hours researching straw bale construction on the internet.

To be truthful, because of ignorance, I sort of looked down on straw bale building until 2006 when I applied for this job with Top of the Ozarks RC&D. After some research and seeing straw bale houses that people were actually living in, listening to their testimonies I was soon a believer.

In fact when this job is finished I plan to build a straw bale house for myself. Last winter’s heat bills certainly helped convince me.  Straw bale construction is historically easier on heating and cooling utility cost.  Some are concerned about using the straw bale construction process in humid areas such as Missouri, but the process is one that allows walls to breathe.  (More about this in another post.)

In my researching  ‘experience’  I found Andrew Morrison’s  web site,  Strawbale.com Andrew presents, by far, the best, clearest and most common sense filled information I found.  His contribution to the straw bale building industry is priceless. If you do not read his straw bale blog from beginning to end and order his DVDs before you attempt to build it will be your loss. If you perform those two tasks,  you will be light years ahead of most carpenters and building contractors.

Additionally, Morrison is available to his readers. If you need to talk to him personally just email him.

There are some good books too, but remember what works in one climate does not always work in another. Plus,  if there are codes in your area they will supercede what the book says.

Try finding a straw bale house in your area that has several years on it and talk to the owner. Remember, he is the guy paying the bills; find out what and what not to do.  With his knowledge and the knowledge you get from reading and researching, you will have plenty to apply to your project and realize the value of your studies.

Thanks for reading this. I’m headed over to the sister blog, Straw Bale Construction in Missouri to reach other readers.  Until next time, keep your bales dry. Richard

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Holding Termites at Bay (Or Even Stopping Them)

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Richard

In my research on straw bale construction, termites have not had much recognition or at least not much has been printed.

In the southern half of the United States these pests are a real problem to homeowners or owners of any building containing materials they will eat. Their appetite can stretch from wood to sheet rock.

When I lived in Wyoming we did not give termites much thought, although in some of the larger communities, such as Rawlins, Wyoming they were making problems.

I noticed in south central Missouri they are not given a lot of thought either, but they should be.

According to my International Building Codebook we live in a moderate to heavy infestation probability area. A lot of the old houses still around were built with oak, which leaves a bad taste in their little mouths, so they left them alone to a large degree.

But any self respecting termite loves the taste of the soft woods we are building with today.   Still, I see little determent built into these houses. It may be easier to depend on chemicals but it is not cheaper or safer. It makes no sense to saturate the ground with insecticide around the house and then drink the water drawn from the same ground.  Just another nail in our coffin.

I have heard said that there is no food value in straw therefore termites won’t bother. I don’t see anything delicious in a pine 2×4 but termites sure love them. I would not bet my straw bale house that termites won’t eat straw.

My advice is to take precautionary measures when building anything that contains plant fiber building materials such as wood or straw bales.

When building a straw bale house it is not hard to keep termites out of the walls.

Termites will not come out into the light and must seek water frequently.

If you are building on a basement or crawl space

  • put a metal flashing on the concrete foundation wall extending over each side one to two inches separating the wood from the concrete work ,
  • be sure to use petro based tar around sill bolts and a two inch, tarred lap, on the flashing joints.

Using treated lumber for sill plates doesn’t get it; I don’t care who says different. I recently helped take down an outside stairs and railing built with treated wood. One of the 4×4 posts, setting on a concrete block, was almost completely hollow. The termites had come up through a crack in the block into the end of the treated 4×4.

On slab structures

  • first  measure in from the outside edge of the beadboard insulation and it’s protective cover the width of the straw bales you are using,
  • next chalk a line and apply a good layer of petro based tar on the concrete  you have measured
  • then cover that with 36 in, wide, 30# felt paper. Fold the paper over the outside edge about two inches, leaving the excess on the inside and remove when you are done plastering.

If you can improve this method, by all means do so. Nothing will be 100% fool proof, but this low cost, low labor approach  sure beats doing nothing. I will discuss part of this over at Straw Bale Construction in Missouri, our sister blog.

Thanks for reading and keep your bales dry, Richard

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Tom’s Straw House — Where Alternatives Team Up

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Richard

Tom Arth,  Howell County, Missouri, had been thinking about strawbale houses before the grant program from HUD through Top of the Ozarks RC&D Inc. in Houston, Mo. was introduced to the area.

When he learned of the availability of the $15,000 grant offered by the Top of the Ozarks RC&D Straw Bale Construction Initiative, he quit thinking and started to act.

Tom first contacted me in 2007, but it was the spring of 2008  before he could get his land for certain.  He put things in motion.

As we come into April 2009. he is close to finishing a nice one bed, one bath, approximately 80% solar straw bale home.  The main heat source is a very small wood stove.

Tom has been his own builder/contractor, doing a lot of the work himself. He told me he had little building experience but was not afraid of work. As I have been overseeing the house from the ground up, I find it difficult to believe he started out inexperienced.  Tom has one straw bale house the big bad wolf won’t blow down.

The house is well built and protected with four foot roof overhang on the sides and porches on the ends.  I am big on the theory of  Big boots and Big hat for straw bale construction and Tom has accomplished both.

Alternative energy holds great interest for me, especially solar. The sun’s power is there for our use, free, except for the cost of the equipment to harvest it.

As a result, I am taking great interest in Tom’s solar efficient project. I intend to do some follow-up in the future on this house regarding energy consumption.

Starting out Tom is using six 175watt Kyocera panels and eight Trojon T-105 6volt batteries. This is basically a 1kw system, which may sound a little small but he has a super efficient Sun Frost electric refrigerator, an on-demand tankless gas water heater and will cook with gas. He has a grid connection so when he is producing more power than he is using it will reduce the cost of power purchased from the power company.

Tom is also concerned with water conservation so he is collecting the rainwater from the roof in an underground cistern and then pumping it to a pressure tank with a small DC electric pump for household use.

Tom may be only one person but it only takes one person at a time using good sense determining how much house is really needed to be comfortable, designing for passive solar and energy efficiency and building it to be nearly maintenance free. To me this is “green”.

Keep your straw dry,  Richard

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All Straw Bales are Not Created Equal

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Richard

A baler makes bales using hay or straw or stalks; set the machine to medium level size and pressure and you should get a stack of  uniform, medium size and shape bales, right?   WRONG!

All bales are not alike even if they came from the same baling machine. A lot of things determine if a bale will be dense and square coming out of the baler, *moisture content in the straw, Volume the baler is being fed, course or fine stems, feeder finger adjustment and the operator’s attitude. If there is rain in the forecast the above is generally ignored, the objective is get the straw in the barn NOW.

We recently placed straw bales into the walls of a house in Top of the Ozarks Straw Bale Construction Initiative Program. We quickly learned the value of perfectly square bales, which there were few of. The bales we used are firm and dense (top priority) but are not perfectly square. Not even close.  The differences weren’t real noticeable until we were up several courses. The bales were a little bit thicker on the cut side than on the folded side. We stacked all of them cut side in.  As a result they leaned to the outside. The reason for this is connected to the machine adjustment on the baler; not enough straw was being pushed by the feeding fingers to the back side of the bale. We should have noticed that the bales were slightly banana shaped which also leaves a gap on one side between the ends of the bales in the wall. The banana shape also means the bale is tighter on one side than other.

To avoid the problem we had, straw bales with this shape should be stacked alternately; one bale cut side in and the next cut side out. If the bales are too banana shaped reject them.

Remember, when you pick up a bale and it sags end to end reject it. A dense, firm bale will not sag. When buying bales check the overall appearance for brightness of color, density and square-ness. Buy about 10% more than you need so you can be picky which ones you use. The rejects make good mulch for your garden. I have a similar comment about  straw bale equality over at Straw Bale Construction in Missouri

Until next time keep your bales dry,

Richard

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