1st little pig would have loved to have this straw house

Tag : Heat Resistant Wire

LIVINGSTON -- When summer sun bakes the valley in century-degreeheat, Jean Okuye bakes cornbread without fuel and keeps her coolwithout air conditioning.
A simple, inexpensive solar pot produces baked treats on Okuye'sback patio. Her new AC-less house cost a bit more than aconventional stick-frame home, but stays at a comfy 78 degreesthanks to straw.
Today, she's opening the doors of the unique home she helped design-- the only known straw bale house in Merced County -- to anyonewanting to witness the insulating wonder of a farm byproduct thattypically gets burned as waste.
"I want people to know there are other ways to do things," saidOkuye, 68. "I'm interested in working with nature, not against it."
Tibetan monks last year joined Okuye's bale-raising with family,friends and others celebrating the 100-year anniversary of theJapanese-American Yamato Colony where her late husband, Paul, grewup. They stacked 150 rice straw bales against a wood frame over aconcrete slab.
Lathe workers then encased the bales with wire mesh and appliedthree coats of stucco. Two-foot-thick walls are the key to keepingOkuye's home cool in the summer and warm in the winter, when sheheats 900 square feet with a small, modern stove fueled with wastewood from her 80-acre almond orchard.
Large windows in a 9½-foot southern wall let in wintersunshine, when the sun passes lower in the sky. Summer sun passeshigher and is reflected by a light-hued metal roof. Okuye pulls incool morning air with a whole-house fan before closing windows whentemperatures climb.
"When it's 100 degrees out, it's fine in here," Okuye said,grinning.
As traditional stick-frame home construction languishes in abruising economic downturn, demand for straw bale houses has neverbeen stronger, said architect-builder John Swearingen. Most clientsenthusiastically research green living, save money for custom homesand "are not people so affected by the mortgage crisis," he said.
Although feed prices for hay have skyrocketed, this is straw. Ricefarmers generally are happy to have someone bale up and truck awaythe waste.
In this story, the first of three little piggies gets the lastlaugh.
Small, simple and recycled
Straw bale houses account for about 90 percent of business atSwearingen's Berkeley company, Skillful Means, which has designedor built more than 40 in the past few years. Most are mansions inSonoma, Napa and Marin counties, though its portfolio includes oneeach in Riverbank and Escalon. Calaveras and Tuolumne countiesreportedly have several. Okuye's is the first in the Northern SanJoaquin Valley opened to the curious.
With 1,372 square feet, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, it's alsoamong the smallest and simplest. Okuye makes do in 900 square feet;a breezeway divides her wheelchair-accessible wing from a garageand private studio apartment available for agrotourists, ortravelers paying to experience life on a working farm.
Okuye welcomed such visitors from as far away as Japan and Israelwhen she lived in the 3,200-square-foot house next door, built byher husband's family in 1920 and now occupied by her daughter,Sheryl Okuye Sauter, son-in-law and three grandchildren, who aretaking over the almond ranch. Jean Okuye's son, Alan, plays pianofor "soul survivor" musician Bobby Womack.
Okuye's life has taken on a shade of green in recent times.
Three years ago, she founded Valley Land Alliance to advocate forfarmland protection in Merced County and continues to serve aspresident. Last year, Okuye put her ranch in a perpetualconservation easement monitored by the Central Valley FarmlandTrust, which pays landowners to keep farming as opposed to cashingin on development dollars.
Okuye installed a huge solar energy system to power her farm,saving some $6,000 a year, and another on the older house. Themetal roof on her new straw bale home sports two solar panelsmeasuring 6 feet by 8 feet, "so I'm running the meter backward,"she said.
She stained the entire concrete flooring with a bag of common ironsulfate fertilizer from a local hardware store. Attractive Frenchdoors were salvaged from the older home. Another door came from thehome of her brother when she learned he intended to send it to thelandfill.
Huge manzanita posts anchoring an arbor for outside window screenscame from a friend's place in Murphys. White fir from another'sranch in Mendocino County ended up in her window framing.
Today's visitors will see drought-resistant plants in Okuye'slandscaping, most labeled for easy identification -- with stakescut from the slats of a discarded venetian blind. And she savedwaste drywall left over from interior wall construction, becauseit's about the same as the gypsum she applies in her orchard.
"I recycle things," Okuye said with a shrug. "I'm into this greenthing. This is what I believe in."
Okuye has yet to add up receipts for materials and labor, butestimates the house cost about $160,000. That would come to $120per square foot, about $25 higher than the Merced County average,according to the latest monthly home sales figures.
"It's not just the cost," she said. "It's what you feel right indoing."
Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at gstapley@modbee.com or 578-2390.