Criterion for Natural/ Sustainable Building Materials

Natural building, with its basic elements such as earth and straw, appears from the outside to be perhaps a primitive or even unsophisticated approach to American Architecture.

As the public and professionals in the construction industry itself become increasingly aware of the damage our building habits have produced to forests, wildlife habitats, water sources and the atmosphere, the list of qualifications any material must withstand to make it into use in a project grows longer every year. Many designers, owners and builders now require a verified lowering of toxic emissions from ingredients such as carpets, paint, chipboard, adhesives and the like...concerns which even a few years ago were seldom voiced.

The burgeoning American population, now discovering the communities in the Rocky Mountain West and the West Coast...as they relocate from urban areas or spend more time there on vacations....are changing the public consensus about how we should use our public lands from an extraction based philosophy (mining, logging, gas drilling) to a recreation/conservation ethic...in which the quality and viability of what remains of our natural legacy is preserved. Obviously, if we curtail logging, we need to take responsibility for our part in the creation of the economic machine that drives demand for forest products...we need to come up with non-lumber based ways to build our buildings.

As global warming becomes a reality...our weather patterns shift...storms become more violent and more frequent...glaciers worldwide shrinking at unprecedented rates...the search for the causes and cures to global warming have surfaced some of the key culprits in the ozone depletion and carbon dioxide production which have triggered this world-wide phenomenon. The largest single contributor to global warming is the coal fired electrical generation industry...the source of 70-90% of the electricity our homes consume on the Western Slope. Impetus is applied to find building materials that require less energy to extract, manufacture and ship (reducing oil dependency and pollution). We also seek to produced more energy efficient homes that use the energy we do consume more wisely...better insulation...dayliting to reduce electrical lighting loads.

When we finish this list of expanding concerns....and develop specific criteria for design, systems and materials for our homes...conventional frame construction, fibreglass insulation and concrete fall off the chart quickly. It turns out these primitive natural building products, procured either on site or in the regional community are some of the only materials that can stand up to the most rigorous and sophisticated requirements for modern building materials today. These primitive elements...straw, clay, adobe, standing dead timber, recycled glass, salvage/reclaimed materials...;combined with systems such as passive solar heating and hot water, water catchment and biological waste water....are the elements of the most advanced building system man has ever developed.

They are applicable to both retrofitting or remodeling existing structures or to new construction.

What follows here is a specific listing of the criterion for these materials and a brief discussion of which ones are seen to fit these criterion, to make it possible for you to chose the ones appropriate or suitable for your home. Remember, whatever you chose to harvest and use for your home...you are living with and ultimately responsible for the environmental impact stemming from its extraction, manufacture, toxic residue, global warming impact, transportation, installation and final disposal at the end of the structure's life. We all are...whether we know or accept it or not. Global warming is not noting who is paying attention and taking responsibility...it's simply responding to our actions...conscious or not.

The criterion are:

Extractive Impact/ Sustainable Harvest...this deals with how destructive actions of logging, clear cutting, mining, gas drilling and the like are to our environment and public lands. A piece of steel has its origin in an open pit iron mine...a 2x4 stud has its origin in an old growth forest in the pacific northwest. Concrete is comprised mostly of gravel..which probably came from a riverbed...which is now destroyed and the fish habitat along with it.

Many of these resources are non-renewable...gas and oil reserves, mining sources...when they're gone they're gone. Our rate of consumption as we draw increasingly closer to the end of those reserves is increasing, rather than decreasing...fueled by ever increasing consumerism.

Many of those resources are renewable...for instance, a forest will regrow after it's cut. But the question of sustainability comes up...how fast will the resource replenish itself and aren't we using the product faster than it can regrow...which is generally the case. Renewable resources are like a savings account...spend more than you deposit and it will disappear. 90% of the old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest have indeed disappeared. The same logging interests (Louisiana Pacific, Boise-Cascade, Weyerhauser) are now leveling British Columbia's old growth forests to keep your lumber yard stocked.

Any of these renewable resources can be sustainably harvested. For instance, instead of the destructive clear cutting practiced by Multi-National Corporations like Louisiana Pacific, there are small independent logging companies on the Western Slope who will go into the forest, select only the standing dead trees to harvest, cut and skid them by horse to existing roads (LP insists the forest service build them new roads into pristine country at taxpayer expense) and deliver them to the mill or your job site. This is sustainable forestry with a healthy effect on the forest and good for the local economy.

Agriculture based vs. forest based resources. We now have coming on line a series of products whose feed stock source is the farmer rather than the forest. The most promising of these is called "Wheatsheet" ..made in Kansas...it's a 4x8 (or larger) sheet or what looks like chipboard or plywood...suitable for decking, sheathing, roof systems, cabinets...anything particle board or plywood is used for. The difference is that, on close inspection, you'll find that instead of aspen chips, it's made out of straw. Similar products are made from corn, hemp and other cellulose/silicon rich agricultural products.

Use of something like wheat sheet could turn the tables not only on forest impacts but lend a lucrative boost to our agricultural economy.

Substitutes for structural lumber such as manufactured joists and beams can be made out of these products, as well as finish materials, eliminating the need for logging altogether.

Much of the impact on our public forests is being offset by the timber industry(seeing the writing on the wall) which is buying up , harvesting and replanting large acreages of commercial forests. In fact, the vast majority of our wood supply comes from these sources as environmental pressure and economics force the industry into sustainability.

However, there are companies (like Louisiana Pacific) which are not willing to make this transition and accept their responsibility for our global welfare. In economic fact, there is definitely no longer any reason to allow (much less continue to subsidize) any logging at all on public lands. Commercial forests and agricultural based sources exist...especially in the event of legalization of hemp...to amply supply all of our needs. Continued below cost logging on public land is one of the biggest corporate welfare scams left in America.

Embodied Energy This term describes the amount of energy invested in a product before it becomes a part of your home. To evaluate this, you need to think about the origin and history of the product. A piece of steel rebar used to reinforce a concrete foundation may have been extracted in an open pit mine in Arizona with a huge crane, loaded on a rail car pulled by a diesel engine, shipped to Pueblo, off loaded by another crane, smelted in a coal-fired refinery, extruded in a factory consuming coal-fired electricity, loaded by another crane onto a diesel truck, driven to your lumber yard, unloaded by a gasoline powered hyster, loaded back on another truck when you ordered and driven to your job site.

So how much energy was consumed in that process and at what cost to our atmosphere and environment. You bought it, so you're responsible for that destruction.

The alternative is used widely in China...has been for centuries...in natural building we reinforce masonry with bamboo...which is an agricultural product and contributes to atmospheric quality in its growth or production. It's loaded and shipped to your site without processing and used as it was harvested. Big difference, wouldn't you say?

The highest embodied materials used in conventional construction are steel, concrete, aluminum, plastic and wood...roughly in that order with the worst first. We try to avoid supporting those products.

Their alternatives which use the least embodied energy are adobe/clay, straw, bamboo, salvaged or recycled wood, sustainably harvested wood (from standing dead or commercial forests).

Toxicity With about 15% of the American population now sensitized to formaldehyde..the public disclaimer from industry about the non-existence of chemical sensitivity while their marketing departments produce labels on fabric claiming they won't cause allergies....we're coming face to face with what an unfortunate few in the culture have experienced as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, heightened allergies, attention deficit disorder, chronic bronchial infections, asthma, skin rashes, memory loss...and more. Symptoms often are either misdiagnosed or misunderstood by the medical community.

Modern American building techniques use formaldehyde everywhere...glues in particle board, the solvent in paints, adhesives, carpets, the binder in fibreglass insulation...it's heavily used (along with phenols) in the fabrics industry...especially in dyes...so we get it in our clothing, furniture, drapery...and don't forget your cleaning products...they contain formaldehyde too.

A friend recently was having problems with dry skin...I was reacting to her body lotion (I'm very formaldehyde sensitive). My suspicion was that the manufacturer was using formaldehyde as an irritant and drying agent in the skin lotion( an expensive and very reputable one). She stopped using any lotion at all and in two weeks her skin was normal...she hasn't had a problem since. Great way to sell lotion...make one that dries your skin out and be sure America thinks they need lotion to fix that.

Wood products shipped across state lines are sprayed with pesticides. Pesticides and fungicides are installed in drywall compound, paint, skin care products and even foods....they kill everything else, but for some miraculous reason...won't harm humans.

Carpet is the worst culprit of all...containing 800 synthetic chemicals...several are known carcinogens...its manufacture is unregulated. The carpet industry is represented by the Carpet and Rug Institute...which has been sued three times in federal court by the Carpet Installers of America...to get the toxins that are killing and sickening those who work with these products...CRI has won all three suits...but now claims on their labels that some people react to carpet...just air your house out a couple of days and you'll be fine. I have pieces of carpet in my shed that are 12 years old...I still react to their outgassing.

One gentleman...a public official in Montrose...has new carpet he can't walk on barefooted because it causes skin rashes on his feet. Should we raise our babies on this stuff.

Besides the toxic ingredients in the carpet, pad and adhesives themselves, natural building sees carpets as a dangerous and unhealthy collector of dust, dirt, mildew, tracked in pesticides, the goo off of parking lots...you name it. Shampooing is a superficial "feel-good" and basically useless process...pull up a section of your carpet and have a look underneath if you think it's clean. These problems generate asthma, allergies and respiratory problems, especially now that every park, parking lot, lawn or garden we walk in is sprayed with something...it all ends up on your living room floor.

Natural building's solution is poured adobe or wood floors (from sustainable sources) with washable area rugs.

Natural building mediums such as adobe, straw, natural woods and the like eliminate the problem of toxicity almost by their origin...they aren't processed...so toxicity just never becomes an issue.

Life Cycle Costing is a term similar to embodied energy...but deals with the total cost of a building product or system over its entire life span...all the costs...and effects...hidden and real...including its final dismantling and disposal at the completion of the life of the building.

Let's look at an example...comparing a standard construction 2x4 wall with vinyl siding, fibreglass insulation and 1/2" sheetrock inside...a pretty standard tract house wall system. Let's compare it to a 16" thick strawbale wall with 3/4"stucco outside and 3/4" adobe clay plaster inside.

We know from filed studies, that if the walls are built by equivalently experienced people, they will cost about the same in terms of dollars paid per square foot to fabricate them.

But, on the conventional 2x4 wall side, we need to start looking at some of the non-apparent costs. For instance, the timber industry which produced the studs operates under a federal subsidy (corporate welfare, if you will) often to the tune of about $0.25 per board feet. The studs cost retail about $1.00 per board feet. But you paid another 25% through your taxes to the corporations that you didn't know about. That subsidy is included in life-cycle costing.

In the life of the building 3 times the amount of energy lost in the strawbale wall will be lost through the frame wall...because the straw wall is a three-times better insulator. We add the additional cost of that energy to the cost of the frame wall total for the 80 years the frame structure will stand. It's an old adage...buy a cheap gas guzzling car because it's cheap and then pay three times the cost of a good one at the pump for the next 10 years.

Several layers of these hidden costs are considered in life-cycle costing, but are too involved to deal with here.

The one remaining, however, which we really should consider...is disposal. The first cost of disposal is at the job site when the house is built. With the conventional frame home, the trash pile is huge (25% off all construction materials coming onto a conventional job site leave in the dumpster) and in it are end cuts of vinyl siding, pieces of 2x4, fibreglass insulation plastic wrappers and scraps, drywall mud and sheetrock pieces. They all have to go to the land fill (add the hauling and tipping fees costs) and when they get there the vinyl, fibreglass and plastic are there forever (non-biodegradable).

Considering the strawbale house...there was little straw left over, because each bale doesn't have to be cut, only the amount of stucco needed was mixed and used(no waste) and same for the plaster. The straw that was left over was scattered on the garden and mulched into next year's rose bed...all biodegradable and no waste or disposal costs.

At the end of their lifetimes (80 years for the frame house...250 years for the strawbale one...factor that in too) the same disposal problem exists for the frame house as did when it was built...it has to be dozed, hauled and disposed of...add tipping fees, bulldozer costs and hauling. Don't forget, the vinyl siding, fibreglass insulation and plastic will not deteriorate...ever.

To dispose of the strawbale house...we take a sledgehammer, reduce the adobe plaster to dirt, spread it on the side, demolish the stucco, break it down into reusable fill or aggregate and burn or mulch the straw...all on site...all usable or biodegradable.

Life cycle costing, like embodied energy...is as much a discipline of thinking and attitude as it is an objective study or analysis of a building system. In the ultimate extent, it is difficult to accurately calculate these comparative costs...but the principle is a good one...consider all the aspects and efficiencies and impacts of a material before you use it. You'll pay the full price sooner or later anyway...we all do....or at least our kids will.

Corporate Responsibility It should be vividly obvious by now that the author is not a fan of multinational corporations and their involvement with the building industry. As this is written, the World Trade Organization is convening in Seattle. One of the items on the agenda is the disabling of the enforceability of all national environmental legislation world wide in order to insure corporate profits.

Another maneuver will be to remove trade and environmental restrictions blocking the clear cutting of massive stands of remaining old growth forest chiefly in third world countries. All this will be done to continue corporate profits riding on the back of an archaic and wasteful building technology.

Louisiana Pacific is now recognized by the EPA as the most criminal corporation in its history. It was fined 32 million dollars for defrauding siding consumers with an inferior, misrepresented product, as well as its officials pleading guilty to dismantling air pollution devices and falsifying air quality reports.

Prosecution of LP took 10 years and cost many of the residents surrounding the plant their health...linked to toxic emissions. One family was forced to abandon their newly built home...it has never been reoccupied. During investigations several LP employees who were scheduled for health examinations and testimony involving actions and handling of toxins at the plant disappeared.

Following conviction of these felonies(which would have put you or me behind bars for a good long time) LP launched a PR campaign claiming, by some miracle of conscious evolution, that it was now a good neighbor. The following fall, it slipped Club 20 (a regional chamber of commerce business promotional organization) $10,000 under the table to publish a "scientific" study maintaining that Western Colorado's Aspen forests and our fall colors tourist industry were at grave risk...the only solution was to cut them all down...clear cut the aspen groves. It was later discovered that $5,000 passed above the table to Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell to encourage him to demand $2 million in Forest Service appropriations earmarked to developing more Western Colorado aspen clear cut contracts (LP is the only company who buys them). How much went under the table will not be known. The Forest Service opposes that funding...it will happen anyway.

The point is this...are these people we want as neighbors? Is this an ethic we should support or condone? What are we doing if we use LP chipboard as sheathing on our homes...every purchase we make in the conventional building materials market has a multi-national corporation behind it. Every time they get bigger they engage in more environmentally irresponsible action.

Let me put it this way...when I get ready to build and need a material, I not only consider my cost, the long term life cycle cost and the embodied energy as well as the source...but who made it and whether I want them as a part of my community. If I buy their product, I assure their continued existence.

Recycled Products The part of the recycling chain that is the weak link and has received very little attention is the buying side. I'm not recycling if I'm not buying recycled. It isn't rocket science to realize that I can't haul my aluminum and plastic to the recycling center, dump it and expect it to disappear. Someone needs to remanufacture it and someone needs to drive the market to keep recycling manufacturers in business...that someone is the source...the dumper...the recycler...me.

So I buy recycled....and use it in my buildings.

Sources of recycled building products begin with deconstruction or demolition of old structures...instead of dozing and land filling them...taking the time to dismantle, denail and reuse these framing lumber and other building products saves money and reduces impacts on the environment and the land fill.

There are businesses...warehouses springing up in a few places in the region (Construction Junction-Carbondale) which take construction end lots, salvage, spare parts and resell them to the public. They're great places to shop for the owner-builder on a budget and a source of spare cash for the contractor who stops his usable building leftovers by on consignment on his way to the dump. A week later, he's made a little bit for his effort. These are viable businesses. Two exist in Montrose...one an architectural salvage lot , the other an individual who scavenges, dismantles and resells recycled building materials.

Bob Burbridge (Nucla) takes all the recycled glass from Western Colorado and crushes it into colored sand and gravel aggregate...used just like conventional sand and gravel...except it sparkles.

Plastic lumber made from recycled grocery sacks is now available regionally.

Rastra Block...a styrofoam/concrete building block substitute is made from recycled styrofoam. We have several homes in the region built with this product...well insulated wall.

The list goes on.

Durability It isn't sustainable building to build something that falls apart, has a short life span or requires constant maintenance...it doesn't matter how natural the product is...if it doesn't work.

An increasingly obvious case of this is natural adobe exterior stucco.

Except in rare and unique instances...these natural clay exterior finishes just don't hold up in this climate. The network has repeated case study documentation of adobe stucco eaten away below snow line, or deteriorating in places where a roof intersects a stuccoed wall. These failures will deteriorate a bale or adobe structure over time.

There is not enough documentation to know how stabilized adobe stucco holds up here. Stabilizing is done by mixing oil or cement products with the mud. The environmental argument against that is the oil products stink and are probably toxic.

There are successful stuccoes where a stone wainscotting is applied to above snow line and the natural plaster used in the area above.

The typical case history we get is someone (a purist) enthused about natural building, wanting to do it right, gets sold on adobe stucco...knows it will have to be repatched yearly in the spring, does that with diminishing zeal the first three years and the fourth year starts wishing they'd used cement based stucco. The problem then is the expense of trying to strip and restucco the home...yikes.

Another case is the use of high-tech roofing systems like isocyanate spray foam...which is a bullet proof solution for flat, water catchment roofs and notoriously leaky parapet wall intersections. The foam is about as natural as gucci shoes...but it works. A roofing system that's all natural and leaks is not a roofing system. Purism in places like this can get us deep into guacamole. It's a matter of rational balance...and knowing the performance and case histories of these products...that's what Smart Shelter Does.

Owner Accessibility The best natural building system or material in the world is useless to an owner/builder who doesn't know or can't learn to use it. The problem with much of frame construction is that you've got to be a trained framer to be able to make a dent in your building costs. That's not true of straw-based and adobe-based mediums...even kids can stack bales and sling mud...so can your friends...if you're promoter enough to entice them.

Roof systems and floors sometimes just end up being a framing job and its hired out if you can't do it. But doing the walls in pressed earth block, bales, lite clay, traditional adobe...or the like can help you make your effort effective and help you do the most spiritually and emotionally rewarding thing imaginable...build your own home.

Local Economic Impact Any Chamber of Commerce in any town in America will tell you that a dollar spent in the local community will circulate five times before it leaves. Natural building products come from the local or regional community. Buying straw from a farmer down the road, renting a pressed block machine from someone in the neighboring community, hiring local stucco contractors, utilizing regional designers and consultants who are developing natural building and tracking it in your community...does more than get you good prices and better service(hopefully) it also contributes to the building of the natural building economy and the financial health of you town and locale.

Aesthetics and Livability Although this subject has been left for last, it is easily the most important. There are very few owner-builder strawbale homes that ever come up for sale on the real estate market. There is a reason. Once someone lives in one...they are seldom in a hurry to give it up.

The super insulation and consequent low energy bills and high comfort level in hot and cold seasons are one reason.

An inadvertent plus is the kind of sound insulation afforded by adobe, block, cob, light clay and strawbale walls. The quietness of the interior is second only to the building's warm feel in the comments heard from people who tour these homes for the first time.

But "The Feel", as it's referred to in natural building circles is something more than just that. Invariably, people to whom this architecture appeals comment..." I don't know what it is , but I just like the feel of this...it's different but I don't know how." Time after time we hear this. You need to see one of these homes to know what we're talking about.

Part of it may have to do with massing on the interior. The stored warmth (or coolness, in summer) radiates into the room from the massive walls and plaster with infinitely more intensity than frame, sheetrock structures. When natural homes are warm, they're really warm...when they're cool, they're really cool..due to the stored energy in the mass.

But there are probably other parts of these building's "feel" too. Some maintain it has to do with the natural products themselves. Maybe there's a latent difference between the feel of a wall made of inert clay and the stalks of wheat which had already finished its life...than that which emanates from old growth Douglas fir that have stood for four hundred years in pristine forest...cut down and sawn well before their time.

There are all kinds of different levels which comprise "feel" in the human experience. There are all kinds of different types of energy that go into a home. Feng Shui and sacred geometry are design philosophies rooted in oriental history which address the "subtle energy" aspects of "feel" and wellbeing in a home. They're worth investigating if you want to be thorough about including all levels of existence in the planning of your home.

Furnishings, Fabrics, Draperies and Imports Often times, a high level of non-toxic construction can be attained in producing a healthy home, only to have it compromised by the "imports" the things added to decorate and "homify" . Any fabric product should undergo careful scrutiny to ascertain its healthiness...especially relating to the fiber (preferably natural) its made of ...the dyes used to color it...and any coating applied after the dye process.

Conclusion....

...So, as you can see...this system of natural building, this simplest of materials choices, these houses of clay and mud...because they satisfy most if not all of these criteria...represent the most sophisticated building system man has yet to concieve. Isn't it neat that they are also so simple and accessable to all of us....not just the moneyed few.