Straw is a star: Builder says Earth-friendly material is great way to insulate

Akron Beacon Journal (MCT) - If ever a building material has gotten a bad rap, it's straw.

Practically from the cradle, we're told it's unsuitable for sheltering pigs, let alone people.

But Bob Perritt knows better.

Perritt, a builder from Amherst, Ohio, was involved in the construction of a small straw-bale structure at the Fifth Third Bank Home & Garden Show, which runs Feb. 7-15at the I-X Center in Cleveland.

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He worked on the demonstration project with students from the Lorain County, Ohio, Joint Vocational School, and builders who specialize in the construction technique.

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It's intended to show the public that a straw house not only can stand up to a lot of huffing and puffing, but it's easy on the Earth, too.

In the display, straw bales form the core of the exterior walls of a 20-by-28-foot timber-frame building. The bales were shaved to make the sides as flat as possible, stacked and then secured with twine to vertical bamboo poles that resemble skinny wall studs. The bales were covered with a twine mesh and the straw walls coated with plaster, inside and out.

But why straw?

For one thing, it's a great insulator, said Perritt, whose company, R.J. Perritt Homes, uses green building practices. The R-value of straw bales _ the measure of their resistance to heat transfer _ is at least R-26 and possibly as high as R-50, he said. That translates to less energy use and lower heating and cooling bills.

Straw is also a renewable resource that requires little energy to harvest or process. And since it's grown locally, it doesn't need to be shipped far.

The construction method has advantages beyond its ecological effects, too. The walls of a straw-bale home are thicker than standard, giving the house substance and creating deep window and door recesses that are architecturally pleasing. The construction materials are nontoxic, including the plaster, which typically is made from soil from the construction site. And because the plaster is tinted by the ingredients used to make it, walls never need to be painted.

Still, Perritt said people are sometimes skeptical. ''Perception for consumers _ that's the hardest part,'' he said.

Often, they worry about straw being flammable, he said. But when the straw is tightly packed and covered with plaster, there's almost no oxygen to fuel a fire.

Bugs are another concern. Straw, however, is the dead stems of cereal grains, so it has no food value to attract insects.

Perritt said building inspectors can be a hard sell, too, simply because straw-bale construction isn't standard. Often a building department will require an architect's involvement to ensure structural integrity, he said.

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The straw-house display showcases other Earth-friendly building materials and systems, too.

One of them is a living roof, a roof covered in plants for such benefits as reducing storm-water runoff and moderating the building's temperature. Other green features include rain barrels to capture rainwater for watering the roof, lumber harvested in Ohio, a garden featuring native plants, mulch made from chips of reclaimed bricks and construction lumber, and garden compost made from sludge from Akron's sewage-composting plant.

This is the first straw-bale project Perritt has completed, but his company is also incorporating straw bales into a house it's building in Amherst Township, Ohio, with the help of the vocational students. The house, called the Home 4 Hope, will be raffled to benefit Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland. (Information on buying the $100 raffle tickets is at http://www.rjperritthomes.com, and tickets will be sold at the home show.)

Only one wall of the house _ the back wall of the breakfast area _ will be built with straw. It's a way of introducing the concept to inspectors and consumers, Perritt said.

Construction of a straw-bale house is labor-intensive, adding about $20 per square foot _ roughly 20 percent _ to the cost of building a home, Perritt said. He said the added expense should be repaid in energy savings in less than 20 years.

But as Perritt noted, ''You can't put a price tag on the payback to the environment.''

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© 2009, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).