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