Straw Bale House Budget - $32 a square foot

How Much Is It Costing
To Build Our Straw Bale Home at Solar Haven?

Drafting of Plans - $1380

Design and Contracting (Solar Haven Contracting) - "peanuts"

New/Used Materials (windows, doors, lumber, fixtures, sheetrock) - 3000

Pre-engineered roof trusses and perlins - 1700

Recycled cotton/denim batt insulation -1500

Radiant foil barrier under roof sheets - 300

Footer and stem wall (concrete block, rebar, grout, labor) - 7000

Fill dirt/backhoe rental to build up floor to level of the stem wall - 700

Professional lime-cement plastering of both inside and outside walls - 2900

Termite barrier - 100

1500 ft. PEX hot water tubing - 800

Straw bales - 1400

"All-thread" rods - 200

High clay content soil for earthen plastering - 400

Satillo tile - 800

Labor/window and door frames - 400

Labor/roofing - 1200

Labor (carpentry for partitions and soffits, sheetrocking, plumbing, electrical) - 5700

Electrical materials - 500

Plumbing and gas lines/materials - 800

Cooling system (ducts and used swamp cooler) - 600

Tools we needed and did not have (circular saw, cordless drill, cement mixer, shredder, hauling wagon, small hand tools such as trowels and several construction books) - 600

Rental Equipment (panel lifter, trenching machine) - 200
"Damn, how could I have forgotten that?" - 1500

TOTAL: $35,600
($32 per square foot)

VERY IMPORTANT: We have been able to build our straw bale home for only $32 a square foot because we have done a great deal of the work ourselves and used recycled materials whenever possible. Had we hired out all the labor including the services of an architect and a general contractor, the cost of our straw bale would have been approximately that of any other custom built home, at least $100 per square foot if not more because straw bale houses like other types of natural building are very labor intensive. On the other hand, had we eleminated the cost of many of the workers we DID hire, we could have built our home for even less than $32 a square foot. It's just a big, big undertaking -- at times exhausting and frustrating, but most often joyful and creative and fun. If you have the time and patience and persistence to just learn as you go and build it yourself, not only will you have a comfortable, quiet, energy efficient home you can take pride in for the rest of your life, but you will have been able to avoid the huge mortgage that comes with a $100 per square foot modern home.

THE OVERALL BUDGET PICTURE
FOR SOLAR HAVEN

Please note: Not included in the above budget for our straw bale house is the cost of buying our four acres, surveying, grading in a road, trenching for the phone line, the septic system, a car port and deck, and the water harvesting and storage/pressure tank system. These together cost $24,000, making the total price of our new home actually $56,000 or $47 per square foot.

We have also invested in renewable energy systems not usually included in the building of a new home: a 1200 square foot greenhouse, a wind generator, a solar hot water system, solar electric panels, batteries, DC-AC power inverter, and a back-up gasoline generator. At a total cost of $31,000, these systems make the total cost of our new straw bale home here $73 per square foot BUT give us almost complete independence from conventional utilities and their monthly bills (except telephone).