Local construction company builds prefabricated straw bale home

COLUMBIA, MO.

A new housing alternative is coming to Columbia.

Building Integrity LLC, a Columbia based construction company hosted an open house Saturday afternoon to showcase the progress of its first home constructed with prefabricated straw bale panels.

Co-president Adrienne Stolwyk says the goal is to create high-performing homes while proving the viability of straw as a sustainable building material.

"Strawable structures can last 100 years. I think that there's a lot of resilience for straw as a building material, but especially in the way that we're building it here is a prefabricated wall," Stolwyk said.

The Columbia City Council established establishment in 2016 that allows for "strawable construction" and "light-straw clay construction."

Lisa Schwartz, who attended the open house, is considering this new option for an extension on her cottage.

"Even though the house is so old... using new techniques that conserve energy just seemed fabulous. I love it," Schwartz said.

Although the home is not fully finished yet, the majority has been completed within two months. Stolwyk claims the fast construction is due to the prefabricated material.

"It's a method that's much faster and blends more with conventional construction practices," Stolwyk said.

The average home value in Columbia has climbed to over $290,000, marking a 4.5% rise in the past year, according to Zillow.

Stolwyk said that this type of construction is expected to be cost-competitive with other methods used for building high-performance homes.

"This type of construction...we think it should be competitive with other ways of building high performance houses," Stolwyk said. So, you can't really compare like a code minimum house to a high performance house."

Stolwyk defines high-performing homes as energy-efficient, with very low operational costs for heating, cooling, and lighting.

"We think that the production cost can go down and that this method could become more accessible to the average consumer," Stolwyk said.

When asked for a rough estimate of the cost of the house displayed to the public on Saturday evening, Stolwyk said she didn’t have an answer, as they are still gathering cost data.

Stolwyk addressed the three common misconceptions about straw bale homes: fire, mold, and pests.

"Straw is definitely flammable, but when it's compacted into a bale, there's no oxygen. So, you don't really have those three things to sustain a fire," she said.

Schwartz also said she has very little concern about the possibility of a fire.

"Based on what I read. There is very little risk when it comes to fire because there's no oxygen. That is part of the three things that are needed for combustion," Schwartz said.

To prevent mold, the company avoids building in wet conditions, allowing the walls to dry properly. Stolwyk explained that moisture is carefully managed using materials like cellulose and continuous monitoring during construction.

"We test these bales with moisture meter as we're building them and as long as you're below like 30%... at 30% moisture, there's the possibility of mold growth and these bales are 10% which is well within the like acceptable range of moisture," she said.

Stolwyk also addressed concerns about pests noting that straw, unlike hay, doesn't attract them.

"Hay includes that seed head. Straw is...when after the seed head has been removed, it's just the fibrous stalk of the plant," Stolwyk said. "So, it really doesn't have the nutritionally dense seed that the pests would be attracted to and also the straw is packed so densely that it's hard for like critters to even get in or nest in the wall."

Schwartz showed no concern for pests either, "The pests, there's no food within the straw. It's not the same as hay, which has seed in it. So those two things, no, it wouldn't concern me at all," she said.

The City of Columbia offers a homeownership assistance program for low-to-moderate income households.