SERIOUS STRAW BALE

WHILE IT MAY BE VERY EASY FOR YOU to understand the basics of a straw bale project, chances are that, unless you’re a building professional or an experienced owner-builder, putting together the many details of design and construction in a workable and efficient way will turn out to be a real pain in the neck. This is normal, considering that lots of new concepts are involved. It might be that good examples from which to take direction have not yet crossed your path, or you might just be feeling the weight of taking as much as possible onto your own shoulders. In either case, you might want to have a look at a few helpful guidelines before you get so far into the project that you need to start thinking about how to repair mistakes.

No matter what type or size of building you have planned, some aspects of your project will become so all-consuming that they will threaten to overwhelm those big-picture factors that seemed essential in the beginning. The best way to avoid making poor choices in pressure situations is by establishing a set of priorities that you can refer to during any decision-mak ing process. When many different options are available for the same situation, these guidelines will allow you to evaluate your choices by giving them scores on a comparable scale of values. For instance, if ecological concerns are your top priority, put them at number 1 on the scale. By following such a framework, you build in the opportunity to stop and rest and make an appropriate evaluation, rather than giving up your priorities to a decision rushed by the course of action.

Budget is often the most imposing factor in the major decisions and, because it is a purely quantitative guideline, it can easily overwhelm the more subjective factors. Since your choice for a straw bale house was probably motivated by its performance and its aesthetic qualities, you should carefully detail these in the list; otherwise they may be totally forgotten in favor of other factors that, in the long run, may turn out to feel less compelling than they did during the rush of construction.

If, like many in the early bale revival, you were attracted by the idea of a bale house as a cheap alternative, you should know that for this to be at all possible, many other factors need to be planned carefully. Some savings will appear when you compare the cost of superinsulating a house with bales rather than with conventional materials (for the same R-value); but the comparison doesn’t stand when you consider all of the costs involved with completing a project. If your house is going to be entirely contractor-built, chances are that it will be, at the best, cost-competitive with a standard house. As in conventional construction, any really substantial savings will have to come from labor savings, by building as much as possible yourself; and on fancy equipment costs, such as in kitchens and bathrooms, where big money can be spent very easily. The finishes of the house can also make the total cost jump sky high! (Read the “Straw Bale Reality Check” section in chapter 1 again.)

Don’t underestimate the invaluable contribution that a professional can bring to even the smallest and simplest of projects. This can be particu-larly true for a bale project, even if you are an experienced owner-builder. Many people believe that they cannot afford to pay professional wages when their budget is very limited, but people on a tight budget are often the ones who will get the most benefit from advice that is grounded in experience and practical knowledge. Design and construction processes hide lots of subtle intricacies that people inexperienced with a given technique cannot even guess at, until an unwelcome surprise bounces in from nowhere.

Few design or construction professionals today are thoroughly integrated into the world of straw bale techniques, but any building professional should at least know the basics of construction, and have some and maybe lots of experience in design and project management. They should, at the worst, be able to help you prevent major mistakes. Whether familiar or not with the bale world, a design professional has at least one important quality for which he or she is trained: the capacity to create a design that will suit your own and very personal needs. If this person only helps to properly size your dreamed-of house, he will justify his participation. When budgets are limited, which is unfortunately always the case to some extent, the hardest thing for untrained people to achieve is the design of spaces that not only fit their needs properly, but also keep them in a feasible price range. A design professional should be able to keep you out of the horrendous trap of the 3,500-square-foot fantasy house built inside the limits of an 800-square-foot budget.

Good planning is the best way to prevent mistakes. Detailed plans and construction documents are the only solid basis on which to nego-tiate contracts and ensure a successful construction process. Even if you’re an owner-builder, world champion of improvisation, you will need plans to get the building permit, bank loans, insurance, and so forth. Even for you, planning ahead will be very useful in making equipment, tools, and materials available on-site at the time when they are needed, and that will certainly be more than helpful for the friends coming to give a hand. And how will you keep the contractors fully in-formed of all the peculiarities of the project without having a good set of plans on hand?

Plan ahead. Here, plastic sheeting has been set up to protect the straw from rain.

Though we are strong believers in the usefulness of professional advice, we must also recommend that you proceed cautiously in your appraisal of any self-proclaimed “straw bale construction expert.” While there are people out there who have earned some real experience with and feeling for the technique, there are nowhere near enough of them to fill the current demand. As is always the case, two types of persons have flowed in to fill this void. The first is the well-intentioned weekend expert. These people can be very helpful; the danger is that the shallowness of their experience can seriously limit the quality of their advice. They should be treated with gratitude and caution. More dangerous (and thankfully, rarer) is the shady character who latches on to the idea of bales as a marketing tool. These people were the bane of the solar hot water industry during the Carter tax-credit years; they form a consistent portion of the mainstream construction industry, and they are likely to cause problems for every new technology that comes along. Obviously, such operators are not to be trusted to do any-thing other than what is most expedient, so that they may line their pockets with your money.

So, how do you avoid getting burned by bad advice, from either of these quarters? We offer the Four Step Plan for the Preservation of the Sanity and Checkbooks of New Bale Builders. First, plan ahead. Second, find someone who doesn’t act like they know everything. Third, beware of one-size-fits-all “systems.” Fourth, check references.

Planning ahead is crucial because it allows you the time and mental clarity to take any advice you might receive with a grain of salt. It also leaves time to search out corroborating evidence. Especially if you are receiving free counsel from someone whose experience is only a bit greater than yours, you will want to bounce this advice off other people. If you plan to work with an “expert” through your whole process, planning ahead gives you time to evaluate their experience and instincts before you get into the thick of construction, when there will be pressure to make decisions more quickly.

You must also seek out someone who is willing to admit what they don’t know, and to proceed logically, based on what they do know, in trying to figure the rest out. Straw bale construction is a young enough discipline that nobody (emphatically including these authors) has dealt with every imaginable situation. Typically, the most experienced people are the most willing to admit their weak points, while those with less experience try to cover their shortcomings by assuming an air of expert professionalism. The problem with this posturing is that nobody can think clearly or carefully when their primary concern is to quickly state something that sounds authoritative, so they can justify their fee.

Watch out for anyone who is pushing a single “straw bale system.” Good systems exist out there, to be sure, but not a single one of them fits all situations. Good design begins with the needs of the occupant, proceeds at a schematic level to the physical attributes of the building, and then settles on the technical matters of an appropriate construction system. Anyone who pushes the idea that one system can suit all needs clearly has no depth of experience.

Most important of all, before you pay anyone for anything beyond preliminary advce on straw bale construction, ask for three references, and call all of them. This action is in no way confrontational—anyone who does good work should be proud to have you call on their past clients. You will learn a lot just by the person’s response to your reference request. Odds are, if they can supply references the references will check out, but you must call them to be sure. Checking references also serves an invaluable secondary function: It is your opportunity to learn in advance the fine points of how to work most effectively with your chosen consultant. Don’t be afraid to ask (politely) what you need to look out for in working with Mr. or Ms. X. Maybe you will learn that they have good ideas, but don’t know how to express them clearly, or that they consistently underestimate how much things will cost, or how much time they will take. Everyone has these honest human failings; the earlier you can learn about them, the sooner you can begin to compensate for them. Any self-proclaimed expert who cannot provide good references, on the other hand, needs to find more experience or another line of work. Sales might be an appropriate field.

Many successful projects involve good collaboration between owner-builders and contractors. Here, the pros are pouring a top slab over insulating bales and the radiant heating tubes.

Unlike the design and the planning work, which can be fun and exciting, getting your building permit for a straw bale house may not be a party unless you know exactly how to do it. Professionals are usually familiar with the requirements of the respective codes and regulations that prevail in the municipalities where they work. They can help you coordinate the details needed for the application.

If no experienced consultant is available, you should first get a written copy of the applicable local regulations. Then study their specific requirements before starting any application process. Get to know the requirements and limitations and prepare yourself ahead of time.

It is very easy to confuse everybody, including the building inspector, by just stating flat out that you’re building a straw bale house. Chances are that this guy will start telling you the three little pigs story, which will put you in the uncomfortable position of having to smile and act as if you haven’t heard this dozens of times before. You have to be much more descriptive about your project, and you should not hesitate to emphasize its conventional aspects. You’ll get through the process faster and with better understanding if you submit a complete set of detailed plans with all other documents necessary to prove that your project complies with the regulations and code requirements.

Keep it Small, Keep it Simple

Whether or not you can afford to work with a professional, your design can at least rely on common sense and simplicity, rather than the illogical greed for space that characterizes so many new houses. Unless you are quite well off and have unusually modest needs, some conflict between what you want in a house and what your budget can reasonably support is inevitable. What you must remember is that, while the goal is to get the best possible house for the amount of money available, the process does not need to involve putting yourself through an emotional wringer, to squeeze things down to the last dollar. It is advisable, for instance, to work through the design phase with a budget of 5 to 10 percent less than the total available; this leaves breathing room for cost overruns and fun changes during the construction process. And if you end up with 1 percent left at the end (this never happens) you can throw a great party!

Similarly, the “best possible house for the available money” almost never means “the largest house for the available money.” A steel industrial building will probably always be the largest space available for any given amount of money, but would you want to live in one of those? A house that is more or less enjoyable to build and consistently enjoyable to live in will strike a balance between size and character, between quantity and quality of space. (This is less true in truly low-budget situations, though these houses, even though they cannot afford delicate amenities, will tend to have a handmade character built in.)

The starting point of a good design process, then, is to simplify your needs. If you begin with the intention of building small and simple, you can add amenities as the budget firms up, and you find out what you really have to spend. That process prevents you from wasting money on wants disguised as needs and prevents stretching the budget thin on unnecessary space; this keeps the quality of the space high, and saves on heating and maintenance costs.

9781890132644_ps_0071_001

Bales retrofitted around the stud frame of a small cabin. Heaslip house, Saxtons River, Vermont.

If, for any reason, you still think you deserve a 3,500-square-foot dream house, give yourself a chance by planning it as a multiphase project that is flexible enough for adjustments in the course of action. Build a small building first, ahead of time, if possible, or in the earliest phase of the project, to get your own hands-on training. In the old days, this would have been the kitchen and bathroom, maybe with a bedroom located above. This will serve as a profitable apprenticeship for you and the other workers. If this is part of a pay-as-you-go schedule, you’ll have the option of building in total accordance with your capacities, both physical and financial. You will also be more likely to reward yourself and crew with an enlightening experience while still having fun by keeping in control of the project.

Building permits have been issued for all kinds of bale buildings, even in places where regulations are very restrictive. Public buildings, which are normally under more severe controls, have been permitted; houses can be found nowadays in major cities. In some jurisdictions, building codes have been amended to include straw bale techniques. Documents and videos on fire resistance and moisture tests, and on structural and insulative capacities of straw bale structures, are available to ease the process of dealing with most authorities. Provide them with as much information as is needed but don’t confuse them by overemphasizing the straw bale aspects. Experience has taught us that in most jurisdictions, once the basic safety requirements are fulfilled, the presence of straw in the walls ceases to be a major issue.

In some cases, the easiest route to a permit is to find a registered engineer or architect to work with you on your plans. If a sympathetic professional can be found, their stamp on the drawings removes the onus of responsibility from the local building department. This can be a practical course in tightly regulated jurisdictions, especially if yours is among the first bale projects in your area.

For most people, codes seem like a collection of incomprehensible, restrictive rules that pave the road to the impersonal buildings typical of most modern suburbs. In fact, the opposite is the case. Suburbs look the way they do precisely because codes and regulations are not all that restrictive. Codes prescribe performance standards (and sometimes size) for buildings and materials; they become somewhat restrictive for safety purposes in densely built environments, but they seldom put limitations on good taste and harmony. The confusion and sameness derives nstead from a general lack of exploration within the scope of the possibilities inherent in the code.

The great majority of readers of this book are likely to live in industrialized countries, where most of the inhabitable environment is regulated by very similar building codes. These generally do not directly address the use of straw bales and related techniques. Many people think that this absence means they are simply not permitted. This is only half true. In this sense, load-bearing and non-load-bearing structures differ greatly.

In the early projects of the 1980s and 1990s, which were mostly Nebraska-style structures, building permits were hard to get mainly because the structural capacities of the bale-and-plaster wall system were not scientifically known, and thus were not generally considered to be reliable by authorities. To change that attitude, profoundly dedicated pioneers started to work with local authorities. With a lot of time and patience, some were successful in modifying their local regulations to include prescriptive standards for the use of straw bales as a structural material. Thanks to the hard work of Matts Myhrman and David Eisenberg in Tucson, Arizona, and many others who followed their lead, straw bale walls are now in the codes in many jurisdictions in the western United States. The existence of these codes has also eased the bale permitting process in other locations where code modifications have not yet been made. Not surprisingly, it is easier for a building official to follow the lead of someone in another jurisdiction than to be the first to go out on a limb in support of a technique whose capacities are not yet completely understood.

Consider the advice of those with more experience. Here, the exterior straw surface has been carefully prepared to provide uniform support for plaster.

In the course of all this negotiation and research, it also became clear that it is much easier to get permits for non-load-bearing structures. This is especially the case with codes that have a section on alternative materials. When the bales are acting only as insulation and a substrate for the plaster, they can often be permitted through such sections, so long as it can be proved that they are not a fire hazard.

Building codes in Canada are of provincial and municipal jurisdiction. One general reference code, the National Building Code of Canada 1995, can get legal enforcement in any province and municipality as long as these jurisdictions adopt it. In some provinces, municipalities have the choice of endorsing the code as a whole, or using only some of its sections to create their own adapted one. In some cases, such as in major cities where fire risks are an important issue, some specific regulations are added to the original code. This generally makes it more restrictive.

The NBC’s philosophy is explained by this description in the National Research Council’s catalog:

Widely referred to as the “bible” of the construction industry, the National Building Code of Canada (NBC) is designed to ensure that buildings are structurally sound, safe from fire, free of health hazards, and accessible. The code, prepared by the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes, is used as a model for virtually all regulations in Canada and pertains whether you are constructing a building, or renovating or altering it.

Health and safety are the Code’s primary objectives, and it strives to achieve these objectives by establishing model standards. Divided into nine parts and organized using a convenient decimal numbering system, the NBC defines words, terms and phrases, and spells out minimum requirements for fire protection; structural design; environmental separation, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC); plumbing; construction site safety; and housing and small building construction.

A number of detailed appendices provide background information that will help you better understand and apply the Code. The NBC complements the National Fire Code of Canada (NFC), and both must be considered when you are constructing, renovating or maintaining buildings.

Local authorities may decide to apply the universal building code to all buildings in a wide diversity of climates, such as humid, mixed heating/cooling maritime areas (Vancouver), or very cold, dry places (Calgary). Such a code has to be flexible enough to provide room for appropriate building standards in very different environments. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding and therefore misconception in the construction business regarding how to apply the code locally.

For bale builders, the same rule applies: You have to find out what section of the code addresses your type of project in order to get it permitted.

Section 2.5 on Equivalents is the part of the code that allows for the possibility of permitting a straw bale structure. In only five short paragraphs of description, you can find out exactly what regulations apply and can be used to prove the reliability of your project. It addresses the basic elements of a building—materials and structure (frame)—and their performance. Once you have proven the applicability of each material or technique used and not already described in the other sections of the code, your permit should be issued.

Section 9 of the code, which specifically addresses houses and small buildings, will tell you exactly what other limitations are applicable to your project, if any.

In some parts of the United States, standards for straw bale construction are now included in the building codes. As of this writing, Tucson and Pima County, Arizona, the state of Nevada, the city of Austin, Texas, and several counties in California have adopted codes for Nebraska-style construction, which also apply to bale infill. The New Mexico state code includes a section on infill construction. As time goes by, and maybe by the time you are reading this book, bales will be adopted into the code in many more jurisdictions.

To date, however, bale advocates in cold-climate regions have been slower than their southern counterparts in working for the adoption of prescriptive code standards for bale construction. There are three main reasons for this slower pace. The first is time—the bale revival began in the hot, dry country of the American Southwest, and is really still spreading from there. The second reason is personality—some of the early proponents of bale construction are the sorts of people who made the codes their problem to deal with, head on, rather than finding ways to work within the existing framework. The third factor, however, is the most important—in cold climates, we tend to construct an independent structure to bear roof loads, and such buildings are not all that hard to permit, using existing code language.

The key to all of this is that codes in the United States are truly not intended to prevent the use of any material, but only to protect health and safety, and to guarantee ancillary standards, such as energy use. According to the preface to the CABO (Council of American Building Officials) One and Two Family Dwelling Code:

All of the nationally recognized model codes upon which this code is based are comprehen-sive and flexible and make provision for the use of all safe materials and methods of construction. Consequently, there are construction materials and practices other than listed in this code which are adequate for the purposes intended. These other methods represent either seldom-used systems or performance-type systems which require individual consideration by the professional architect or engineer based on either test data or engineering analysis and are therefore not included herein.

Now, this CABO code is not actually the code that will govern your jurisdiction. Codes in the United States are typically written on the state, county, or city level. These codes take most of their language from one of three larger code organizations: Building Officials and Code Administrators International, Inc. (BOCA) in the Northeast, the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI) in the South, and the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) in the West. CABO is an organization made up of representatives of these three organizations, and the CABO code is a compilation of these codes. The above excerpt does, therefore, reflect the intention of all the major code bodies in the United States. Whether or not some language to this affect appears in your local code (and it is worth looking for), this attitude should be what guides your local officials.

Relating
to
Building
Officials

First and foremost, building officials are people, with a job to do. As in any group of people, some are grumpy or petty, some are lively and interested in new or unusual things, and the majority are simply trying to get their job done, so they can get home in time to have supper with their families. Thus, you might be met with a range of possible responses when you walk into the inspector’s office with your sheaf of plans calling for straw bale walls. How you are received matters far less than how you act. You must remember that enforcing codes is a useful job and also not an easy job; there are some very obnoxious morons in the construction industry, and building inspectors take flak from them all the time. You must separate yourself from these people; your actions and attitude must make clear that you are not a jerk, that you are not trying to build an unsafe house, and that you respect the official’s role in the process and are willing to supply them with the information necessary to see your plans through. Humility and competence are the required qualities, here.

It should come as no surprise, then, that securing permits for bale walls has been simpler when they are acting in a nonstructural capacity. Existing tests prove that they will not burn and that they meet energy codes. Proving that they will not rot might be somewhat more difficult, except for the fact that code officials tend not to ask about this. It seems that they are quite accustomed to wood construction, which is also rather decay-prone. On the other hand, if the bales and plaster are to support the roof it must be proven that they can handle both live and dead loads. In the jurisdictions where bales have actually been adopted into the codes as a structural material, this was typically the result of some significant (even if homemade) test procedures.

In some areas, it will be possible to walk into your local code office with a set of plans for a bale building, and walk out with a permit. This will usually mean that someone has come before you, and done a very good job of informing the local building officials. More likely, you will be the person doing this job, and you had better be willing to handle the task cheerfully and thoroughly. There is also a good possibility that your local or state officials will take the language of the above passage quite literally, and “. . . require individual consideration by the professional architect or engineer based on either test data or engineering analysis.” Some bale enthusiasts chafe at the notion that the simplest (and some-times the only) route to a permit can come through the stamp of a licensed professional. In reality, this is quite a reasonable stance for a code department to take; in effect they are saying that while they don’t want to take responsibility for the safety of this new technique (there are liability issues, unfortunately), they don’t want to prevent you from using it, either. Until bale construction develops a track record across many different climatic regions, and until champions emerge to push for amendments to the codes in the corresponding political jurisdictions, we must work with what we have available.

Maybe you will be the one to bring a willing local architect up to speed on straw bale details, or maybe you will initiate the process of writing a straw bale code for your state.

As interest booms in straw bale construction, the questions of cost and project management are becoming increasingly important.

You at least need to figure out which aspects of the cost of a straw bale project are most subject to your control. Like in any conventional building, total costs here are twofold: materials and labor. While it is feasible to make accurate cost appraisals of materials and therefore to plan and/or make necessary adjustments, making accurate labor estimates is more challenging.

When planning the numerous tasks that make up a project, there are two major categories to consider: the rough and finishing work. Because the pros and cons of building load-bearing or non-load-bearing structures are discussed in other chapters, we will simply reiterate here that in both types of bale construction the rough work, by which we mean raising the basic structure and putting on a roof, is relatively easy to estimate and control. But needless to say, in a bale project the finishing work, which is mostly unconventional, will use up most of the money, creating the biggest pains in the neck, unless control measures have been planned.

While there are possible savings in doing the rough work yourself instead of paying a professional contractor, if you can afford to spare only a limited length of your own time to work on the project, you should definitely invest this time en-tirely in the finishing phase, where the big money goes. Carefully allocating the high-cost and low-cost jobs between owner and contractor will eventually help balance your time and money budgets.

If you have been involved in construction processes before, you are familiar with the intricacies of dealing with professionals—including architects, designers, engineers, and contractors—and with the legal relationships that link these parties. Even though the following advice is mainly intended for owner-builders, certain cautions may also be useful to professionals who have never before worked on a straw bale project.

An organized building site is safer and more likely to stay on schedule and on budget.

The
High Cost
of
Paying
too Little

John Ruskin made an observation about costs and quality that is as insightful now as it was in the 1800s. He wrote:

It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money—that is all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything . . . because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot—it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.

Because labor costs may amount to as much as 50 percent of the total cost in a standard house—or much more for an unconventional project, substantial savings are possible if the purchased labor is kept to a minimum. Professional and trade workers deserve the wages they ask for when they work in their field of experience, but when learning new techniques and possibly doing experimental or improvised work. They may be willing to negotiate lower fees to gain experience, so that they will be able to charge full fare with future clients.

Goodwill is often the worst source of misunderstanding: on the one hand, a client needs help and presumably has turned to professionals for guidance, and on the other hand, a contractor is willing to make every effort to make the project successful. But unless these teammates are accustomed to working together, and the strength of their friendship and mutual trust can overcome even serious problems, it may happen that at some point communications will fail to satisfy both parties. This will likely bring about the question of liability, with much discussion arising when it may be too late to agree even on the basic issues.

Efficient communications are the key to success in any business. With clear contractual agreements based on detailed plans and specs, problems should not be any more difficult to solve in a bale project than in any conventional one. Disagreements will frequently arise when key technical information is shared only verbally. Even in the best possible atmosphere of goodwill, the expectations of the owner may depart from what the contractor has understood and the mental image he has been relying on for his work. In a bale project this is more crucial because all teammates— contractor and crew and owner—frequently lack appropriate experience and training.

Unless there is a clear template for discussion between the parties, as the work progresses, dis-crepancies in understanding can grow into obstacles. As time becomes an issue, progressively less of it may be devoted to communications, further undermining the success of the project.

Expecting contractors to be responsible for techniques they don’t know much about puts them in a very uncomfortable position. The fairest arrangement is to agree on a very detailed description of the work, where the contractor’s responsibility is linked to the execution of the work as described, while the liability for the long-term performance of the building rests with the owner. There are as yet no standards, no guarantees, no agencies that can back up liability for experimental techniques such as those we often use in our bale projects. These methods are at best perpetually evolving toward higher performance and generating a growing bank of reliable references. While testing proceeds and guidelines develop, we all know that the long-term performance of every new project remains to be seen.

A contractor is usually bound for the ex-ecution of the work as described in construction documents, but he has no liability if such documents don’t exist or are too vague on the particularities of the technique, due to bad design or simple lack of information. If you can’t provide reliable information, let the contractors do what they know best and try to keep the experimental work under your own supervision. Do it alone or with friends, or hire someone willing to charge less for the sake of his own apprenticeship; that person may as well be a contractor, as long as it is understood that he is also learning and only expected to do his best under the circumstances.

Responsibilities in a building project can be split three different ways. The execution of work can be undertaken by the contractor, the administrative work can be supervised by the owner, and the legal issues and general project oversight can be handled by the architect (or designer, or engineer). In some projects, administration can be the contractor’s responsibility, but overall supervision of the work should never be left to the contractor’s authority. The reason is simple: In the course of the work, he might find himself in the position of judging if his own work complies with the plans and is satisfactory to the owner. This is best prevented by having someone act as an arbitrator between the owner and the contractor in case of conflict. That person will be in the best position to assess such a problem, providing this arrangement has been established by both parties. Normally the project’s architect, designer, or engineer or any other designated professional, fulfills the role of arbitrator.

To prevent unpleasant surprises you may be attracted by fixed-priced contracts as security against excessive costs. These can work well in a conventional, predictable project, but in a bale project, they may also encourage the contractor to take a very large markup to cover the unpredictable risks inherent in imprecisely described work. This mistake left a bitter taste for some early-era bale house owners who expected to have their project entirely contractor-built at reasonable cost. Fixed-price contracts for bale buildings are more likely to succeed when designs are simple and efficient, and the execution of the work is closely supervised. The risks involved in small-scale projects are smaller than those in large ones. Think twice before getting into an important project if you can’t keep the risky work under your sole control and re-sponsility; otherwise you might have to become very friendly with your bank manager.

A good way of dealing with the challenge of imprecisely specified work is to hire contractors on an hourly basis. Make arrangements to work with them to learn the technique. Establish that once you have learned, for example, how to do the plastering work, you will take over. That will give you an opportunity to keep labor costs to a minimum, and it will ensure that you pick up the technique properly.

If the entire job is not under the responsibility of a general contractor, you will act as project manager, and either your architect or yourself will supervise the quality of the work in compliance with the contract documents (plans and specs, etc.). However, depending on your competence and availability you might want to hire a project manager with adequate background to super-vise and coordinate the work of the subcontractors for you. Subcontractors should be given their specific tasks, and the project manager will help to plan their work schedule and their interac-tions with other workers.

Foundations and roofs are usually best done by contractors because you always want these two jobs to be finished rapidly; they are easily negotiated under fixed-cost contracts and under full liability. If the supporting frame is simple, it may be possible for subcontracted carpenters to build it from detailed drawings. Frames for straw bale buildings often vary from standard techniques, however, so it’s crucial that the carpenters understand how the bales will fit into the frame, and what limitations the bale module imposes. The remaining jobs—the bale work, the electrical and plumbing installations, and the finishes—can be carried out by subcontractors or by the owner and various volunteers.

The bale portion of the work always requires some special handling, experimentation, and adjustments; because this demands careful attention and concentration, it is best achieved during a separate phase of the project. Trade workers who are used to working under pressure and with an established rhythm usually don’t feel comfortable when things don’t move that way. If the bale work is carried out when these guys are off duty, they won’t complain and will more easily concentrate on their own work. Thus, let them do their part and work your bales in when no one else is working on the premises. Weekends are ideal for bale work because they are usually the only time when you can get together family and friends to lend their helping hands. Do all the basic handling with their help, such as unloading the bales from delivery trucks, carrying them inside the house, and stacking them close to their final placement in the walls. These types of tasks are boring for one or two people but become fun when done by an enthusiastic crew looking forward to a pizza party!

The next step is to organize small groups to place the bales into or around the frame. Make sure there is at least one person in each group who knows exactly what to do and how to teach the others. Here it is important to plan ahead about how to transfer the knowledge from its primary source—you, your architect, the project manager, or anyone else with the appropriate knowledge—to the bottom of the production line.

Change orders are a significant source of extra costs. Major changes introduced during construction always have considerable consequences for the budget and the schedule. In bale projects, changes in finishes are the most common source of these extra costs.

We all dream of the “money is no object” project where everything is possible, but unfortunately the real world works with limited budgets. It is a reality, however, that when the finishing phase comes up, either we become very excited or new options appear that we had not even considered during the planning phase, and most of the time we end up making all kinds of changes. We usually don’t mind the additional costs attributable to these changes because they will make us happy for a long time. Nonetheless, the best way to prevent such eventualities is by providing a good buffer in the original budget.

Keep in mind all along that you will organize a big party at the end to celebrate, and that all participants will be invited. This will force you to keep your relations with everyone smooth throughout the entire process, and will help you to solve problems when they occur. No frustrations will be carried along unresolved and a shared feeling of success will be the most enjoyable gift that you could dream of!

2 . Credit for much of this material goes to David Eisenberg, of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, whose Web site is listed in the Resources section. For more in-depth coverage, see his working paper, “Straw Bale Construction and the Building Codes.”