4. Grossman - Dadisman

The first thing you will notice about this house is that it is under construction. And upon further examination, you will find that the walls look very different. That is because this is a house built out of bales of straw, one of two that we have on the Tour this year.

Strawbale houses have extremely thick walls with a high insulation value. The owners will end up with a warm house with wonderfully deep window sills. Because roofs cannot be made of straw, the owners used a SIPS (structurally insulated panel system) product to achieve the R 38 roof.

It is a somewhat complex house in that it has both curved and straight roofs and a two story sun space in the center of the house. You will notice a huge boulder in the sun space right now, to add some interest and some thermal mass to the room. This is one of the truly passive solar houses on the Tour with glass and mass, in the form of exposed and stained concrete floors, being used. Sunshine coming in a south wall of glass does not make a house passive solar – mass is needed to store that heat so that it is released at night when heating is needed. It helps keep the temperature much more even and helps to eliminate the large temperature swings (just think of your car out in the sunshine on a summer day).

The owners were able to put up the straw bale walls with the help of 20 friends, and all they had to do was feed them with beer and brats. The owners have also done some of the construction themselves, both because they wanted to and because they have had a hard time finding qualified sub contractors.

One of the owners has taken much of the information she has learned over the years and put it all into their new house.

Passive Solar
Sunspace, connected to house
Trombe- Michel wall
Exposed concrete in basement
6” concrete floors

Thermal Features
R – 38 walls
R – 38 roof
R – 8 under slab

Photovoltaics
5.6 KW system on the roof

Solar Hot Water
6 panels on the roof
350 gallon storage tank
domestic hot water and space heating

Thermal Envelope / Thermal Comfort
Low – e windows
Ceiling fan
Expanding foam insulation around windows and outlets
Zoned heating

Lighting
Rooms revolve around sunspace
CFL
Solar powered outdoor lights
Motion sensors / timers
LED

Construction Techniques
Strawbale
Cement – Lime Stucco
SIPS roof
Recycled stair treads, laminated veneer lumber, some framing lumber, IPE wood, interior doors,
some exterior doors, 2/3 of the sunspace windows
High performance windows

Appliances
Energy Star rated
Tankless boilers

Lifestyles
Recycling
Composting

Re-used / Salvaged Materials
Some cabinets in the media room
Some lighting fixtures

Unique Features
Highly informed homeowner (CRES member since 1999)
Pre-wired for home automation system

Green Features
Non-fiberglas insulation – closed cell foam in non-straw bale walls and most of the roof
Strawbale
Oriented strand construction board in non-strawbale walls
Engineered lumber floors
Stained concrete floors

Water Features
All low flush toilets
Two button toilets
Xeriscaping
Drip irrigation
High water table provides 200 gallons per day for outside vegetation