By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

ROCHESTER, Ind. — As far as Rebecca Bonsib and Rob North are concerned, building with bales makes sense. Their friend, Marty Fair, who helped them construct their energy-efficient barn, wholeheartedly agrees.

“I was ecology-minded long before ‘green building’ became a buzzword,” he said. “I used to lead seminars on alternative building materials, especially straw. Only 25 percent of the straw cut every year is used; that’s a big waste. We’re lagging behind on green construction.”

While Fair has worked on two other straw buildings in Indiana, the one he helped North and Bonsib construct on their rural acreage is the only one in Fulton County.

“The move towards straw buildings started as soon as horse-drawn balers were developed,” he said. “The trend hit its heyday in the 1930s and then fell off until people started bringing it back to life in the ’70s. Properly maintained, straw built buildings last indefinitely.

“You have to do everything you can to keep moisture out of the wall,” Fair emphasized. “There’s no real right or wrong way to build a wall, as long as the builders use common sense and proper building techniques.”

Those include pouring a monolithic slab with footers extending below the frost line. “You have to have a vapor barrier,” he added. “The straw can’t touch the ground.”

Using post and beam construction techniques, they installed posts at each juncture of the octagon. “We built straight walls because they’re easier to build than round walls,” Fair said.

Stacking 300 bales of straw – any straw, oat, wheat, rye, barley or rice will work so long as the bales are tightly woven – was challenging. Each had to fit into place. Where walls angled together, bales were broken open and arranged to conform. Rebar was pounded through the stacked bales, followed by two weeks of “stitching” chicken wire into the bales to hold the stucco that covers the building inside and out and gives the building breathability.
During construction, the barn was covered with tarps to keep it dry. “If it got wet, we would have had to tear it down and start over,” Fair said.

The stucco process was equally long and tiresome. “I got to the point I said the only way I could do anything was if it didn’t involve raising my arms,” North said. “I’ve never ached so hard in my life.”
The entire building process took eight months, but while the builders found erecting the 47-foot (outside diameter) barn challenging, they were pleased with the finished freestanding building topped by a cupola that doubles as a guest room for hunting buddies.

The solar-efficient barn has bale-wide window ledges that face south to enable North and Bonsib to nurture seedlings for later planting. The insulation value of the walls is at least R-45. Inside temperatures never drop below 45 degrees and can easily be warmed to 60 degrees with a wood burner.

Total cost of the self-financed barn was $47,000. (North said most banks won’t make loans for structures utilizing alternative materials.) That price included the metal roof and the heavy concrete base.

“We could have built a heck of a pole barn for that,” North said, “but it wouldn’t have had the insulation value.”

As for Fair, the next straw-built structure will be his home. “Straw still is the ultimate alternative building material,” he said.