He Built a Home of Sawdust/Concrete

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It turns out that a couple by the name of Ray and Barbara Harrison bought the unusual sawdust-concrete house from the home's innovative builder—Wait Friberg—23 years ago. Ray and his wife—who've raised seven children in the distinctive dwelling—claim that the house has stood them in good stead over the years. The basic structure (as you can see in the photos on the opposite page) is still sound and has shown no signs of deterioration.

As for those "cold Idaho winters", Ray Harrison says that—thanks in part to the excellent insulating properties of the sawdust—concrete walls—his family's heating bills generally run $30 to $40 a month less than those of their neighbors who live in similar-sized homes of conventional construction. Ray is quick to add, however, that at least some of those heat savings can be attributed to the "passive" solar heat design features that Walt Friberg incorporated into the house.

The northern side of the building, for example, is built back into a slope, and large windows cover a great deal of the home's south side. What's more, directly above the southern-facing windows is a series of aluminum reflectors that angle even more of the winter sun's energy into the dwelling than would normally filter in. (Those same reflectors shade the windows somewhat and help keep out unwanted heat during the summer.) At night, the Harrisons; "shut" solar heat in the building by pulling heavily insulated drapes into place behind the southfacing windows.

If you've followed the story this far, you may be wondering [1] whether any other structures have ever been built using the "wood-fiber and diatomite" concrete developed by Walter Friberg, and [2] what ever happened to that clever Friberg fellow anyway. Well, Walt has—over the years—built or helped build some 30 or 40 sawdust-concrete buildings in the northern Idaho/eastern Washington area ... and he is still working with the material. Walt says he feels that from the materials-cost and energy-cost standpoints, his unusual concrete mix is even more attractive today than it was 30 years ago.

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