Our Green Dream Home
(Page 3 of 5)
December 2004/January 2005
By Catherine Wanek
“We were Terry’s first straw bale design that actually got built,” Margie says. “What we knew about straw bale was from two books, Build It With Bales and The Straw Bale House.”
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From the beginning, the Van Cleves learned to adapt to unforeseen situations. “Our house was designed for 36-inch bales but we got 48-inch bales,” Margie says. “We had to make lots of custom bales, which became a real pain.” Plus, the contractor put in more posts than the design called for, which meant more notching. Still, the wall-raising was a rewarding and bonding experience. Whenever something tricky came up, the crew would stop, talk it through and figure it out. “It’s not rocket science,” David says. Since then, two of the volunteer couples have built their own straw bale homes, with the Van Cleves on hand to assist.
To help control costs and the quality of their home, David and Margie acted as their own general contractor. Living next to the building site, in a house they sold after the new home was finished, made the work easier, but it still was a challenge.
“We’d change clothes after work, go over and work on the house until 10 p.m.,” Margie says. “We worked 95 percent of nights and weekends. After about six months, we were really frazzled. It was hard, but I would do it again.”
As the general contractor, they had more control over the building process, including hiring subcontractors and occasionally firing those who didn’t perform professionally. They also were on-site to supervise and make the myriad decisions required along the way. “I’d go to sleep at night with a pad of paper by the bed in case I thought of something, or had a problem bugging me,” Margie says.
“Because we were on our own construction schedule, when we got to the electrical system we could take our time picking out fixtures and thinking things through,” David says. “So our switches and lights are just what we wanted.” David did all the plumbing and electricity, including wiring the fixtures, which were designed to accommodate energy-efficient,compact-fluorescent bulbs. He kept electrical runs in the interior walls as much as possible and avoided running plumbing through the straw bale walls.
David and Margie also did the interior painting, stucco prep and the rock work surrounding the fireplace, but subcontracted the plastering. They turned to Rich Radoslovich, who chose a cement/lime exterior stucco, and a gypsum plaster for the interior finishes.
David and Margie chose red oak hardwood floors rather than a concrete slab (traditional for passive solar and geothermal designs) for their floor surface. Atop the stem wall — the perimeter foundation wall that supports the post-and-beam structure — they installed truss joists. This allowed them to insulate the floor below the plywood subfloor and hardwood finish floor. The red oak flooring is made of pieces called “shorts.” These 10- to 24-inch pieces are the leftovers after full-length oak pieces are cut; consequently, they are relatively less expensive.
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