Living
& Building With Straw & Clay
 The Canelo project
Diane: Can you give me a step-by-step of how a straw-bale home is built
today?
Athena: The most important thing is the foundation, because straw
bales are sensitive to moisture. That doesn't mean they can't be used in wet
climates — they can and they have been. Humidity is not a problem for the
bales. It just takes good design and a good foundation.
You want to get the foundation above grade about 8 inches or more. It has to
be something that won't wick moisture up into the bales. A cement foundation
is most often used, although we've seen stone as well.
You can get as "alternative" as you want. If you use cement, it
must be adequately sealed, because cement does wick. Sealing stops the
moisture from coming up from the ground into the bales.
In past years, re-bar was used in the foundation to attach the bales. But
re-bar tends to bring moisture up as well, so nowadays many people are
building without it.
The straw bales then get stacked on top of the foundation in a running bond,
and you usually place some kind of beam on top of them. The bales then get
pinned together for stability with internal pins of either re-bar or bamboo.
We've even used saplings.
Lately, we've discovered that you can use external pins, and it gives you
much more strength with the same amount of material.
With this method, you have a pin on either side of the bale. You tie through
the bale to the pin, and it sandwiches the whole wall. That gives the bale
incredible strength.
After that, you attach the roof. You usually have some way to go under or
through the foundation or attach it to the foundation with I-bolts or some
kind of wire strapping. There are different ways to do it.
One way is to attach a wire to the foundation, go up one side of the bale,
across the roof-beam, and down the other side of the bale to attach to
another location in the foundation. The wall is bound this way every six feet
or so. That keeps the roof attached to the bale walls.
By using a compression system, the bales become much stronger. Whenever we
build we try to introduce compression because of its strength.
From this point you start laying on the rafters just
as you would in a conventional building. In the US, most walls are being
covered with cement plaster or stucco, so sometimes chicken wire is run over
the bales, and then stucco is applied, by hand or sprayed on.
Since Bill and I have been using all earthen plasters, we don't use chicken
wire. We create a high-straw content so that we can put a one-coat plaster
mix onto the bale all at once — finish it off and be done. This way the wall
still breathes, which is crucial for the bales.
Again, if one is doing cement plasters, depending on the climate, they should
be sealed with something to prevent the wicking of moisture to the bales.
Diane: It sounds like you're looking at a really thick-walled home.
Athena: It is pretty thick. And you can't beat the insulation. There
is just no quicker, cheaper, or faster way to get highly insulated walls, and
I can't think of any place in the US that wouldn't benefit from
this type of building.
Diane: Are straw-bale building methods okay for a wet climate like Florida, where I live?
Athena: If you give it a good roof, just like any house, give it good
window sills, and get it up off the ground with a good foundation, there is
no problem at all. There have been many examples of straw-bale homes being
built in wet climates.
Diane: You said you use earthen plasters. What stops the walls from disintegrating.
Athena: We've found that earth does disintegrate — the question is how
fast. We've discovered that very high-sand mixes tend to erode very quickly
and disappear.
What we've been doing is adding very high quantities of straw to the mixture,
and this allows us to keep the clay at very high concentration. Then we don't
have to dilute it with as much sand, and it doesn't crack. We can put on up
to four or five inches at a time without getting any cracking. Because it has
so much straw content, it creates a mini-thatch affect, and when the rain
hits the straw, it just runs off.
On vertical wall surfaces, you don't want to take the plaster down to the
ground because of termites and splashback. But if
you keep it up off the ground and give it a roof or porch overhang, it can
last an amazing amount of time.
We've had walls last for six or eight years without noticeable wear.
Diane: Do mice and pests get into the walls?
Athena: Once the walls are plastered, they are solid. They are way
more solid than a frame wall. Imagine the frame walls filled with rats
running and the other things that crawl. With straw bales they can't. There
is too much dense material.
Again, once the walls are plastered, they are amazingly rat, insect, and fire
resistant.
Diane: That's cool.
Athena: When you mix the clay with the fiber,
it can do amazing things. Together, clay and fiber
become this incredible duet, much more versatile than when they are alone.
Diane: Like beans and rice.
Athena: That's right. They compliment each other, and they become
better together. To put cement over the bales seems so incongruous.
Diane: I notice from your website that you've been teaching people in Mexico
these techniques?
Athena: Yes. When you put straw-bale construction into the normal
building system of this country, with architects and contractors, you'll get
some beautiful houses, but it won't necessarily be affordable. You'll be in a
different realm.
But we've been teaching a women's group down in Mexico to help each other build
their own homes. For me, the beauty lies when something like that can happen.
Diane: You said you started building out of necessity. But were you
sort of an "earth mother" anyway?
Athena: Yes, because I grew up building on the pueblo, and we always
built out of mud.
Diane: Could you talk about the stigma of using straw-bale building
materials in your Mexico
project, and how they are associated with lower class and poverty? How is
that going?
Athena: Well, the men usually are more in charge of the building, and
are most sensitive to the stigma against building with these materials. They
are afraid their peers will look down on them — that they'll be "less of
a man" if they build with anything other than cement.
That's why we work with the women, because actually the women could care
less. They are more interested in their children being warmer in winter,
cooler in summer, and more comfortable.
Also, the women are more motivated to actually have their own houses. The
husband, because of his pride, will put off building the house until he has
enough money for cement, rather than go to a cheaper, more available
material. If you offer the women a choice between having a straw-bale house
tomorrow or a cement one next year, they'll go for the house tomorrow.
That's why the women's project is so successful. You'd be amazed to watch the
husbands sitting out under the tree watching everyone work. It usually takes
them about four or five days — and then, on their own, they come and kick the
walls, highly skeptical. As the walls get stiffer
and stronger, they start to get the impression that it's not all going to
fall down. Then they start getting into it.
Go into most
buildings. They don't do anything to connect you deeper to yourself.
Creating a
space that reflects who you are deep inside is something you can never buy.
You can never pay somebody to come in and design it for you and to build it
for you and then expect yourself to walk into that space and have it feel
like home. That's the craziest notion!
If you've had no interaction with it, no relation with it, and it's no
reflection of who you are, it's never going to be home.
I've seen the
pride in people's eyes and the pride in their heart, soul, and whole being
when they create their own homes. There is no comparison. And it has nothing
to do with dollar signs.
Diane: Thank you so much for this wonderful conversation, Athena.
Athena: You're quite welcome! 
Spirit of MAAT
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