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the exception of the exterior walls, the rest of the construction costs for a straw bale house can be identical to any other building style. Most contractors estimate the cost of the wall system at about 10 to 15 percent of the total budget. As a building material, your straw bales are going to directly affect only that percentage of the total cost. To truly save money, a straw bale builder must turn his or her attention to all the other aspects of the building and lower costs at each stage. Fortunately, straw bale construction lends itself to the use of plenty of alternatives that can reduce the overall cost of a project.

       Comparing Apples to Oranges

      When comparing the costs of a straw bale home to those of a conventional home, it is important to make a fair comparison. The 2-by-6-inch frame-walled, airtight house is the current building standard and benchmark for comparison. If you use straw bales to build a house of identical square footage, the costs are likely to be similar to that of a frame-walled building or perhaps a little lower. However, such a direct comparison is misleading. To equal the thermal performance of a straw bale wall, conventional builders would need to opt for a double 2-by-6-inch stud wall, or use furring strips and a layer or two of Styrofoam insulation to raise the R-value. This kind of frame wall construction definitely tips the cost scales in favor of the straw bale wall.

      Building super-insulated frame walls also requires the use of more manufactured materials, upping the levels of embodied energy in the house and raising the environmental costs even farther beyond those of a straw bale wall. The idea is not just to spend less money, but to maximize the efficiency and energy savings of the finished home. With a straw bale wall, you can raise thermal efficiency while maintaining or undercutting standard costs in both dollars and environmental impact.

      — Chris Magwood

      How to Really Save Money

      The choices you make concerning labor, materials, and finishing will determine whether or not you are able to build within a certain budget.

      Labor costs will have a big impact on your construction budget. Doing it all yourself will eliminate labor costs. Doing some work yourself and hiring for some will raise costs proportionally. Having your home entirely built for you by others will increase costs even further. Remember that if you build the house yourself, you will have to make a serious commitment of time. While you may not be paying for labor, you may be losing your own earning potential. It is quite possible to mix and match your talents and interests with those of local professionals and find a good balance between your budget, time, and level of expertise. Finding the right blend of personal sweat equity and hired help is crucial as you try to establish an accurate budget.

      Materials choices will similarly cause wide variations in cost. Right from the early stages of your design work, the choices you make — especially about foundation, roof, windows, and mechanical systems — will have major cost implications. Research your choices carefully, and be sure to weigh initial costs against long-term costs; sometimes extra money spent up-front in the building process can save lots of money in the long run.

      The chapters on budgeting and going shopping will help to clarify some issues around choosing materials.

      Interior finishing also makes up a significant portion of a typical house budget. Bathrooms and kitchens are the most expensive spaces in the home. Take into account what kinds of flooring, doors, windows, kitchen cabinets, appliances, curtains, rugs, bathroom fixtures, etc., you want. The same basic building shell can be finished in wildly different ways, resulting in astronomically different budgets.

      What You Spend Now versus What You’ll Spend Later

      Even if you’re looking for the lowest possible costs, take care to weigh the advantages of bottom-dollar prices with other factors. Used, single-pane windows may be dirt cheap, but you will pay for that choice with higher heating costs for the rest of the building’s life, and many building codes do not allow single pane windows. Cheap toilets are another common “money saver”; they won’t last as long and they use more water.

      5.1: Friends and families, from kids to grandparents, are usually glad to be part of a bale raising. This can help save on labor costs and be a lot of fun, too.

      Salvaged materials can be free, or at least significantly less expensive than new. But, they can also require large amounts of time to clean, prepare, and fit. This is fine if you have lots of time, but otherwise could offset the cost advantage. If you are willing to put in a bit of extra legwork, you may produce excellent and inexpensive options for many building materials, but rate their usefulness, condition, and long-term performance carefully.

      Over Budget Is the Norm

      The building that is completed without going over budget is rare. Never plan to spend everything up to your last available penny at the budgeting stage. There are always problems,delays,or unforeseen costs, and they can add up significantly. Be sure to leave yourself plenty of breathing room. It is better to plan more modestly and finish your project than to plan grand and fall short of completion.

      The Real Savings Are Long-term

      Your straw bale house will inevitably save you significant amounts of money when it comes to heating and cooling costs. Long after you’ve finished the house, those savings will keep multiplying for you. So even if you don’t build the cheapest house in the world, you likely will be building the cheapest house in which to continue living in the long term.

      The Final Word

      Well, there really isn’t a final word on cost. Each house is unique — even when created from the exact same set of plans — and only you can make all the ongoing, complicated decisions about cost. The price tag is up to you. We put afford-ability high on our list of priorities when planning and building, and we hope you’ll find some good advice in this book to help you keep your costs as low as possible.

References

      Roy, Rob. Mortgage Free! Radical Strategies for Home Ownership. Chelsea Green Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0-930031-98-9.

       CHAPTER 6

       Getting Focused

       Most owner-built homes start with a dream and a basic desire to shelter oneself affordably, creatively, and adequately. But as soon as you decide to realize those dreams, actually getting started can be daunting. You’ve entered the thinking stage, and now it’s time to get focused.

      Whether you intend to build every part of your house by yourself or hire a contractor to build it all for you, it is important to get focused and answer some basic questions very early in the process.

Work Smart

      Putting Thinking ahead of Building

      When most people envision building their home, they picture themselves with a hammer in hand, hoisting a bale, or in some other way being actively engaged in the physical building process. For those who have never built before, acquiring manual skills and technical building knowledge appears to be the most daunting part of such a project. In this book, we work with the assumption that the major difficulty faced by potential builders is visualizing and articulating what they want from a building and learning what will be required to achieve their goals. The thinking tools are the most important tools you will acquire. In comparison, actual construction — whether done by you or by hired labor — is a matter of basic achievable mechanics.

      Wrong Turns, Bad Decisions,

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