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Down and Dirty
Local straw-bale enthusiasts prepare for annual conference
Herald Staff Writer
Photo by YODIT GIDEY/Herald
Jay Hecker stands beside a 9-foot-by-9-foot skeletal frame that will become an enclosed shed with the addition of straw-bale walls and two coats of plaster. Participants at the eighth annual Natural Building Conference, sponsored by the Colorado Straw Bale Association this weekend, will complete the work. Roka, a calico cat that lives at the Shared Harvest Community Garden, watches over activities.
If you go
The eighth annual natural-building conference, sponsored by the Colorado Straw Bale Association, is scheduled Saturday and Sunday at the Shared Harvest Community Garden, 3232 County Road 234. Registration is from 7:45 to 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Speakers are scheduled for 9 a.m. each day, with workshops starting at 10:30 a.m.
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"Most of our participants are well-read on straw-bale construction," said Jay Hecker, a member of the conference organizing committee. "But they haven't had the opportunity to get dirt under their fingernails."
Registration is available the morning the conference opens. After a keynote speech, workshops will begin at 10:30 a.m. Workshops will cover various topics, including bale stacking and electrical installation, timber framing, mud, cob and compressed earth blocks, lime plaster, solar photovoltaic systems and natural paints.
Chris Magwood - a straw-bale builder, teacher and author from Ontario, Canada - will be the keynote speaker Saturday. Joel Glanzberg, founder of the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute in Santa Fe is the main speaker Sunday.
Permaculture incorporates sustainable, ecologically sound agricultural practices into inhabited communities.
"Permaculture is an extension of natural building," said John Rehorn, a La Plata County straw-bale builder and president of the Colorado Straw Bale Association. "You don't stop a project with a house, but you build a space around it."
Hecker, whose day job is running his Insight Designs building company, last week put the finishing touches on the framed and roofed structure to which conference participants will add straw-bale walls and then two coats of plaster. The finished product will have a snug R-44 insulation value, compared with R-19 for standard construction.
In addition to being a teaching tool, the 9-foot-by-9-foot shed will serve a utilitarian purpose. It will house a composting toilet - a standard toilet equipped with a tank in which waste decomposes and from which liquid is drained by a line to a leach field.
The outhouse will remain after the conference for the convenience of members of Shared Harvest who are tending crops.
"Participants will rotate from workshop to workshop, which includes working on the shed," Rehorn said. "They'll have a chance to do it all."
The first day's work will end with the application of a rough coat of plaster to the shed's completed walls, Rehorn said.
The same workshops will be repeated Sunday, and work on the shed will be completed.
Two-thirds of participants at the natural-building conferences held in La Plata County hail from the Four Corners, with the remainder from Western states, Hecker said.
Once in a while, there has been a visitor from the East Coast and, on one occasion, from Spain.
Part of natural building is using local materials, Hecker said. The wood for this year's conference comes from a source within 150 miles - lumber from Lorax Timber and Alpine Lumber, clay from Reeder Construction and straw from the San Luis Valley.
Most participants are homeowners interested in building a straw-bale house, Hecker said.
There are few mainstream builders.
The association's first five conferences were held on the Front Range. Now, after three conferences in La Plata County, next year's event is expected to move to Gunnison.
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