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Daryl Bergquist explained the benefits of the two banks of solar panels at the straw bale house.

The Big Bad Wolf can huff and puff all he wants but he’s not likely to blow down this North Central Alabama house of straw—straw bales that is.

The three-story straw bale home, featured on a recent energy tour attended by about 15 members of the Blount-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Blount class, uses a combination of its straw bale’s insulating qualities, passive solar design and solar panels to operate comfortably but completely off (or not connected to) the electrical grid.

Daryl Bergquist, owner of the Earth Steward Solar Consulting Company, led the tour, provided information and answered numerous questions about the straw bale home and the other home visited, a partially underground earth-bermed residence in the same community.

While the owners of the two homes preferred to remain anonymous, they graciously shared their homes and what they have learned, as well as what they would now do differently, through their building and living experiences with those on the tour and for this article.

Bergquist explained, "Every kilowatt you save is a pound of coal we don’t have to burn."

And one tour attendee enthusiastically added, "And that’s one kilowatt I wouldn’t have to pay for!"

Bergquist explained the walls of straw bale houses can be either load-bearing or post-and-beam, as was the house the tour visited. The beams across the cathedral roof and in the walls were harvested directly from the woods surrounding the home place, with the logs then debarked by hand, with Bergquist and others using a drawing knife that had belonged to his grandfather.

Bales must be of straw, not hay, and these walls were approximately 14" x 18" by two feet of stacked wheat straw. The deep walls provide about twice the insulating value of a normal house with regular in-wall insulation.

Ceiling fans are used in each room and there’s even enough solar power to run a one-ton window air-conditioning unit when needed, which is not often even in the hottest of Alabama’s summer days.

Daryl Bergquist explained the benefits of a solar oven.

The straw bale home’s "truth window" allows everyone to see the original straw bales inside the walls, the needle used to "knit" the chicken wire together and other tools.

The basement also houses the home’s electrical inverter which converts the electricity from the solar panels to current which can be used by items within the home, as well as storage batteries containing 12, 2-volt cells.

Water from the home is pumped from the well by a small DC pump which feeds the water into barrels in the basement and then pumps it into the home as needed. Water is usually pumped while the solar array is working at top capacity to prevent draining the batteries.

Outside there are two banks of 30 solar modules, about half 75 watt and half 100 watt.

The solar panels can be moved to better face the sun, with their highest angle position being during the winter months.

When the home was first built in 1995, the owners experimented with wind power, Bergquist explained, but found there was just not enough wind in their particular area to justify the expense. Also, the wind turbine was mounted at the crest of the home, "which was not a good idea," Bergquist explained they all found out.

He now laughs, "The wind turbine resonated through the house like a tuning fork or the bridge of a violin!"

The home also featured a propane-fueled refrigerator which is situated on the home’s deep front porch just outside the kitchen.

A small wood-burning heater in the kitchen provides additional heat during the winter when passive solar doesn’t provide enough continuing heat.

(Kelly Lerner, architect and author of Natural Remodeling for the Not-so-Green House, noted in the energy crunch of the 1970s, too much glass and not enough thermal mass was used in passive solar houses making them too hot in the day and too cool at night. She suggested about seven to 12 percent of the floor area of a building be in south-facing glass for a correct solar ratio.)

The home’s owner had already placed a squash dish in the outside and portable solar oven to be cooking for that night’s meal. Bergquist explained solar ovens can be built easily with plans obtained on the Internet or from books usually available at your local library, but this home owner’s and the solar oven his family used, were bought. Even breads can be cooked as the ovens can reach temperatures up to 350 degrees!

The straw bale house.

Straw bale houses were first thought used in the West in states like Nebraska where settlers needed easily obtainable home building items. But there are several straw bale houses in the South, some more recently built and some more than a hundred years old.

The Burritt Museum in Huntsville is a large two-story straw bale house built in 1936.

A visit to a nearby partially underground home was also an eye-opener for leadership class members as they walked across the home’s grassy "roof" to a solar water heater complete with a drain-back system of copper tubing.

While Bergquist explained that particular system cost about $9,000 installed, it is expected to last from 30 to 50 years providing all the hot water the home needs with no additional expense. Federal tax credits are available for the solar water systems and some of the other projects.

Before that installation, the homeowners’ hot water was provided by a piping system that traveled through the rear of their home’s wood-burning heater!

Bergquist explained the underground home, built in the early 1980s, was made with steel beams for braces, a membrane and insulation over the roof, and then sod and grass.

That house also utilizes passive solar design, with a bank of south-facing windows on the front wall.

The home was not "cave-like" at all, having also a rear door opening directly to the chicken area and garden.

The home’s temperature never goes below 50o, even in the coldest of winters.

This home is tied to the electrical grid which is the primary thing the owner would change if she could.

"I wish we could have at least wired it for solar when the home was built," she stated.

Bergquist explained a house can be retrofitted for solar power, but it is easier to wire it that way while the house is under construction. Although certain areas can utilize solar panels even if a whole house does not: like solar water heat which can be a less-expensive alternative than the underground house’s system, etc.

But the message from all this shouldn’t overwhelm, Bergquist explained. If every household in the United States switched at least one light bulb to the new fluorescent ones, the savings in energy and money would be staggering.

Likewise hanging out at least one load of clothes each week could help your energy use and your budget.

Homeowners explained that a home’s clothes dryer may be the most expensive appliance to operate in any home. The cost of a "solar dryer" can be as little as a few dollars for a line and some economical clothes pins! Or you can just hang your clothes on hangers above your bath tub to realize the savings.

(This writer has not had an electrical clothes dryer in nearly two decades, instead uses a solar one stretched in her backyard. In addition to saving money, NOTHING beats the smell of clothes and linens freshly dried outside!)

Members of the Leadership Blount Class earlier heard from an Alabama Power spokeswoman during their day-long study of energy and technology, according to Blount Chamber President Charles Carr.

More information on Bergquist’s business can be obtained at www.EnergizeAlabama.Org. Numerous articles can be obtained on the Internet about everything discussed in this article and more. www.motherearthnews.com has archives of their nearly 40 years of issues. Additional information can also be obtained at www.backwoodshome.com, www.makeyourhomeenergyefficient.com and www.solarcooking.org/plans.

Suzy Lowry Geno is a freelance writer from Blount County.