A nonprofit is hoping to ease the California housing crunch with a building method that is centuries old—stacking bales of straw.
Just Places, which is partnered with another housing nonprofit, People First, both located in Santa Cruz County, is looking back in time to help solve a modern crisis—the lack of affordable housing.
With a staggering median list price of $1.95 million in the area, homeownership is out of reach for many. Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, in the Soquel neighborhood, wanted to use its land to build “permanent, green housing on-site for people coming out of homelessness, in a collaborative, village atmosphere.”
Michele Landegger, one of three general building contractors who formed Just Places and also owns a sustainable design and construction firm, Studio Boa, says that baled straw is the perfect material for the job.
While it was used in Asia and Europe for centuries, the straw-bale home didn’t make its appearance in the U.S. until the 19th century.
“It was developed in the 1800s by farmers who had no resource for wood, so they saw these bales and realized they’re like building blocks the way kids play with Legos,” she told KSBW8.
The straw bale “village” for those transitioning out of homelessness would consist of six tiny homes, along with several buildings offering studios as well as one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The homes will replace six cabins currently on the church’s property that were deemed “uninhabitable” by the county and red tagged, according to Just Places.
The straw-bale homes—which could be completed in four to six months provided the $300,000 funding is raised—would be LEED-certified and solar powered.
The material is so durable that Landegger says some 1800s-era straw bale homes, built in Nebraska, are still standing—and even occupied—today. The Pilgrim Holiness Church in Arthur, NE, built in 1928, is a newer example.
If you’re thinking straw-bales homes must look like the inside of a horse stall, think again.
The straw bales are stacked behind regular walls made of plaster or another type of exterior cladding or interior wall finish, and the homes look like any other homes once they are completed.
For instance, this two-bedroom, three-bath straw-bale house on six acres in Wilderville, OR, is listed for $950,000.
“Sometimes we use a little ‘truth window,'” Just Places co-founder and general contractor Kita Glass tells Realtor.com® of the straw bale homes he’s built. “Somewhere, we’ll have a little piece of glass so you can see that the house really is made of straw.”
The benefits of building with straw bales
StrawBale.com, which offers workshops, design services, and custom and predesigned straw bale house plans, says using straw bale can save up to 75% on heating and cooling costs, is environmentally friendly and sustainable, and even offers excellent soundproofing.
The site recommends straw bales for “homeowners looking to block out the sounds of traffic or airplanes in urban environments.”
And if you’re thinking that straw bales wouldn’t be a wise choice for fire-prone areas, you’d be wrong.
“Straw bale homes have roughly three times the fire resistance of conventional homes,” it says. “Dense bales mean limited oxygen, which in turn means no flames.”
Although estimates differ, experts say that using straw bale for insulation is not only nontoxic but cheaper than regular materials.
While straw-bale homes are fairly popular in Asia and Europe, they account for only a tiny portion of the homes constructed in the U.S. But Glass says that’s changing.
With companies such as EcoCocon and Verdant Panel creating prefabricated straw wall panels, it may soon be far easier and more cost-effective to build a straw home.
Reducing emissions through green construction
Buildings account for 38% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But straw-bale homes are carbon storing and carbon negative, meaning they remove more carbon dioxide from the air than they emit.
When carbon is created by the growing of grains like rice, wheat, and oats, their straw is left over after harvesting. The carbon is then reemitted into the atmosphere when the straw begins to decompose. However, if you stack the straw behind walls, it stores the carbon for the life of the home.
“This is an agricultural waste product that the farmer was going to bale up and try to get rid of,” says Glass. “But now they can put it in their trailer and drive it to our job site. There’s no big, complicated supply chain. And there’s no creepy chemicals in it.”
While the carbon will eventually be released when the house comes to its end, Glass says that extra century or so of storage can make a big difference.
“We’re at a tipping point of runaway climate change,” he says. “What we really want to do is stop putting carbon in the air right now.
“We want to avoid this impending catastrophe.”
