A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals: Build with straw bale in Maine?

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Build with straw bale in Maine?

HI there Mick

I found your name on the web while doing a search for straw bale construction in Maine.

My partner, XXXX and I are getting ready to build again yes at the ages of 60 and 66! We have a bit of land in XXXX and want to build as off the grid as we can We also love straw bale, but haven’t been able to find out where to get straw bales anywhere near here We thought perhaps you could give us some leads Do you know of any local farmers who grow and bale straw and will sell it ?? any hints you can give us will be much appreciated!

Meanwhile Happy Spring!

_____________________________________________________________________

Hi XXXX:

I should start off by noting that Aimee and I are both scientists, not straw bale advocates, so we do objective reporting on our work, including domestic experiments. We have been gently advising homebuilders against building with straw in Maine now since we got done with our bale house experiment. The main reason is the lack of suitable cheap bales, and the fact that you will almost certainly have to build a straw-wrap house, rather than a "Nebraska style." Because you will have to build some kind of timber frame to support the roof, and because straw is expensive and has to be trucked far in Maine, there is no great cost savings and there are increased climate emissions. In particular, we paid up to $7 a bale, and the lowest price we got, at $2, was for very few bales. I would expect to pay an average of $3.5 for a 40-50 pound bale.

To my mind, these facts negate the whole argument for straw -- that it's a cheap locally-produced product for both structure and insulation that would otherwise go to waste. Straw is neither particularly cheap nor locally produced in Maine. It's also labor intensive, particularly at the plastering stage, and labor is not cheap, while plastering skill is hard to come by.

You will discover additional difficulties with insurance and possibly building codes enforcement, none of which are necessarily insurmountable, but it makes little sense to take them on considering the above. There will also very likely be difficulties later with critters in your walls.

If instead you used cellulose (a fully recycled product) or recycled foam board insulation, or both (see below) you would get the insulation benefits, reduce costs, avoid critters and codes-enforcement officers, and be able to insure your home for less.

Cellulose is R3.8 per inch. An 8-inch stud wall cavity (really 7.5 inches) filled with cellulose (on 24-inch center) is R28.5. Two inches of recycled polyisocyanate or urea formaldehyde foam board on the outside of the sheathing adds around R24, providing R52.5, enough insulation for a passive solar house. These specifications, carried out by a proper contractor, are suitable to pass muster as a "normal" home with insurance companies. If you home build, you may have to use "surplus lines" insurance, but the costs per unit coverage will still be less than for a bale home.

Some natural builders balk at using either kind of insulation, worried about venting of toxic chemicals contaminating room air. The fire retardent in cellulose is borax, which is toxic, but doesn't actively vent in any toxic form, and will in any case be behind drywall. The recycled foam board will be fairly stable, because it is old, and any venting will be to the outside, not inside.

Having noted all this, I will mention that our advice generally has little effect on prospective home-builders who are already commited to straw bale. This seems to be one of those cases of advocacy or possibly religion defeating science.

If this is the case, straw bale vendors can be found, and with luck you may get a good price. The best chances are found with hay dealers who make a living trucking hay from regions where it is in surplus, such as Aroostook County, to places where it is in shortage, such as the suburban Boston/Portland region. Hay dealers can usually find straw bales too, and a tractor-trailer load can be easily arranged in season.

The dealer I use is Mr Beem of Beem Farm in Newport, Maine.

I have written this information out several times in the past few years. I hope you don't mind if I post this email to my blog so I don't need to do so again.

Regards,

Mick

4 comments:

ChadJune 13, 2008 at 7:40 AM
Just found your blog today while looking for others similar to my (and wife) own. Couldn't resist commenting on the straw bale construction. It is a shame that straw just isnt grown that much in Maine. The company I work for has had a couple projects that we are using ICF blocks. The one's we are using are called Durisol, and are made from recycled wood bound with portland cement. They have insulation on the inside cavity as well. Pour in the concrete every 4' or so and you've got one heck of a wall. I'm gathering that folks who like the idea of straw bale in some way like it because of the plaster on the outside. The Durosol is great for that. If I was a DIYer putting up my own walls I'd use the styrofoam ICF blocks, much easier to handle and the inside framing is almost always made to have rebar just popped right in. Anyway, that's my 2 pence worth. Off to go read up on the back logs now...
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Rick HonerAugust 21, 2008 at 2:03 PM
IMHO Straw makes lots of sense in Maine. I had no trouble securing 600 bales from Beem farms at $3.50 (including winter storage) to build our straw bale home in Palmyra. The insulation value, the look, and the low maintainence all contribute to its attractiveness. The key factors in building an inexpensive home are: size, sweat, utilities, materials.
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MickOctober 2, 2008 at 4:32 AM
This has been done, although the mortar used is usually clay-based.

See “Serious Straw bale,” a how-to book, for details. If your local public library doesn’t have it, you can get it through Interlibrary Loan.

Generally my wife and I advise against using any straw bale building material in Maine based on our experience of high costs versus other insulation particularly recycled products.

You can read an article about this here, with several interesting comments.

http://womerlippi.blogspot.com/2008/05/build-with-straw-bale-in-maine.html

On 10/1/08 10:45 PM, Ed XXXX wrote

Hi Prof. Mick Would like to ask your thoughts on following

Why couldn't Straw bales be pre-coated with Lime/plaster prior to construction much like concrete building blocks ???

In my case I would love to construct a " Straw Bale House on a flat roof that joins and old Brush Mill in XXXX Me. ~~ The walla would be non load bearing and I would probably use clapboard outside walls to match the rest of the building ???

Any comments appreciated and nice article they wrote on Your family home up the coast !

Ed
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co-straw-guyJanuary 19, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Greetings all easterners, jan 09

Just happen to be searching and scanning east coast straw news as I'm originally from Boston and have been considering a renovation project for my parents who reside in Newton, MA. I mostly plaster (earth, lime, gypsum) SB homes out here in Colorado and I do some building as well and all prep. Just putting this out there if anyone is uncertain about earth plaster and would like to hire me for any project they may have. I've done some very high-end projects in Boulder and elsewhere and I primarily work as a sub-contractor but the work I do is on a flexible basis and far far, far less expensive than the typical contractor. Email me with any questions as I could be willing to make a trip to my old stomping grounds of ME and MA for a work/family long-stay vacation. Generally labor is very high but it's interesting to see the complaints about material cost. How big are we making those houses??? I'll agree that the bales could be a challenge to locate but Canada isn't that far (not much further than getting bales from central CO if you live in the Denver area?) Regardless I shouldn't advise on this issue much but building with bales can be very cost efficient if you're willing to take your time and do some work yourself. Are we trying to build quick stick houses or houses that will last and please the soul?? Plastering is very easy to learn although not always an easy job, actually it's a lot of work. As for materials? dirt, clay, chopped straw, sand and some water throw-in some pigment and it looks great. You might even be able to dig much of this around the home site? How about slip-straw or light clay straw? My advice, if you're seeking to keep the toxins out, go with straw (even in Maine!) and earth plaster. As for critters? They tend to hang around during the build phase, in your bales and towards the end of plastering they tend to have less places to hide so you tend to see em more often but after a few traps and after all is sealed it's a done issue. wtf people? So, any questions drop me an email maybe we'll meet one sunny day in Maine....that is, if they have any sunny days in Maine?
Ken eatbikenap@hotmail.com
ps Bush is out, straw is in!
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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.

After getting tired of spam comments (up to a dozen or more per day), I required commentators to be Google "registered users". You can write me at mwomersley@unity.edu if you have a serious comment or question and are not a registered user.

Spammers -- don't bother writing -- there's no way I will post your spam to my blog. Just go away.

The Farm

The "Womerlippi Farm" is actually a homestead or smallholding where most of the food is grown for our own consumption and that of our friends and family. We raise Corriedale/Romney-cross sheep, feeder pigs in season, and Golden Comet, Aruacuna, Black Laced Wyandotte, Brahma, and Buff Orpington hens. We have wooded pasture, old apple trees, and a large kitchen garden. We build and maintain our own energy-efficient buildings, service and fix our own vehicles and farm equipment, and generally live a thoroughly self-reliant lifestyle. Our farm goals are less economic and more psychological/spiritual and lifestyle oriented. We like an independent, quiet home life with a lot of interaction with animals and the earth. Farming, building and energy-related engineering were also part of our education work at the former Unity College. Having said all that, we're practical people and grow a lot of pretty solid food and fiber. We're also happy to sell you some eggs or yarn or lambs.

PS: "Womerlippi" is a combination of our last names, "Womersley" and "Phillippi." The one is broad Yorkshire, the other Greek, although Aimee's ancestry and home culture is Pennsylvania Dutch/Shenandoah Valley Church of the Brethren. When Aimee and I married, she didn't take my name. She said she "wasn't trading up."

Why is this "A Great Farm Diary?"

Because the setting for the events recorded here is the "Great Farm" of Jackson, Maine, that's why. (Not because this is such a great farm, although we like it.)

Started by privateer and financier Israel Thorndike in 1806 as a vacation home, the famous Great Farm of Jackson was an agricultural showcase for this area of Maine, and Thorndike used it as such, an advertisement for his private land office business, as he disposed of the famous Waldo Patent, in which he was a part owner. Land purchasers could work off their mortgages as laborers on the Great Farm. Most deeds in Waldo County trace back to Israel Thorndike.

Thorndike, born to a family of modest means, went to sea to make his fortune. He captained a privateering vessel during the Revolutionary War, and tweaked the nose of the great Royal Navy more than once. He then settled to a life as a financier, merchant, and captain of industry in Boston. He remains listed as one of the fifty richest Americans of all time. He was the author, with Eldridge Gerry, of the first recorded gerrymander, and so his name went down in history for that peculiarly undemocratic deed too.

He was, in short, a rich, arrogant, unrequited arse, whose primary redeeming feature was impressive ambition. If you are such a person, you should feel ashamed. My work in academia has introduced me to many such wealthy people, and frankly, I'm tired of them. The world doesn't revolve around you and your silly ideas of what is important. Grow up.

Our own much smaller farm sits on a few acres of the original 2,000 that Thorndike developed as an agricultural showcase. As he was a famous Federalist, while Aimee and I are obvious neo-Jeffersonians, of sorts, I doubt he'd be pleased with what we've done with the place. But we don't give a rat's wotsit. As I said, we like it this way.

Read the very last posts in the archive for more details, or use search terms like Israel Thorndike or "Great Farm history" in the Google Blogger search engine (above, on the left).

How this Diary is Arranged:

From Mick:

The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive below, click on the link provided, and read backwards from there to get it all in chronological order.

To find out what is happening right now, read the first post first.

Other blogs by Mick: UC SAR, UC Sustainability, Farm Diary

Enjoy.

Farm Produce

Purchasing Womerlippi Farm produce in season can be done by email arrangement, and/or by shopping at the Marsh River Coop in Brooks.

We sell yarn, fleece, lamb, and livestock for meat or breeding.

The yarn is Bartlett Yarn's 4-ply, a medium-thick yarn, in natural gray and brown, as well as natural dyes. It is soft and bulky, and makes nice old-fashioned knitwear. You can buy it for $7.50 a skein by emailing womersleymick8984@gmail.com. We ship priority mail, minimum four skeins at a time. The shipping is extra. We also have raw white and brown (natural colored) fleece in large quantities each spring, unwashed, untreated. Email us at mwomersley@unity.edu and name your price. Expect to pay shipping or pick up in person. Coming to the farm itself without prior appointment is not recommended. We have a child. We also have a dog who bites. We like that he bites, because we have a child we want to protect. If you come unexpectedly to the farm, stay behind any temporary hot-wire gate or fence, or park in the driveway, until someone comes. We'll know you're there because the dog will tell us. Loudly. Annoyingly. They will wake us or our kid, if we are asleep. We will be mad about this.

If no-one comes, we're not home. Go Away.

If you are yet more foolish and try to get out of your car and/or cross a gate or fence, expect to get bitten by a shepherd dog, rammed by a ram, or chewed out by a shepherd.

A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals