Columnist Susan Snyder: A sturdy house of straw

Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000 | 9:15 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@vegas.com or 259-4082.

You can huff, you can puff, but you'd be hard pressed to blow Vera Vann's Blue Diamond house down -- even if it is made of straw.

Well a lot of it is, anyway.

From the outside, Vann's two-story home looks like any other stucco house built in the Southwest style. It has some obviously custom tile and woodwork, but it looks solid enough.

But just inside the front door, visitors find out what's really underneath that eggshell-colored plaster. A tiny wood-framed window pane shows the walls are filled with bales of straw.

"That's the 'truth window,' " Vann said. "It's a tradition." A tradition for a very untraditional type of home. Vann, a special education teacher at Helen C. Cannon Middle School, is an equestrian, musician and American Indian art collector who seeks spiritual and environmental connections in every facet of her life.

So when it came time to replace her dilapidated mobile home with something more substantial three years ago, she looked for the unconventional. She built her house of straw bales.

"I'm very much into ecologically sound practices," said Vann, who created the adobe-style fence surrounding her yard from five-gallon paint buckets discarded at construction sites.

"I figured this was my chance to put my money where my mouth is and support alternative building," she said.

In simple terms, straw bale houses typically are built one of two ways. Either the bales are secured together as "load-bearing," meaning they support the weight of the roof. Or they are used as the filler between the posts and beams of a wood framework.

Bales are packed tightly, covered with a chicken-wire-type mesh and plastered over. Electrical wiring is encased in copper pipe inserted through the bales. Same goes for plumbing.

Straw bale proponents say the homes can be more fire-safe than frame houses because the straw is packed so tightly there is not enough air to feed flames.

Vann's walls are 24 inches thick. With that kind of insulation, ceiling fans provide all the air conditioning she needs. Rooms are heated individually using hot water pipes and electric fans.

She pays about $60 a month for all the gas, electricity and water she needs for the two-story, 1,600-square-foot home.

Clark County's building department has issued six straw-bale home permits in the past two years, says Rita Miscavage, department spokeswoman. Both types of construction are allowed, although load-bearing homes can be only a single story.

Vann spent about $30,000 in surveys and waiver fees to get a building permit. Her second floor is regular framework because straw construction for the second floor wasn't allowed when she received her permits.

It is now because of another homeowner's persistence. Alternatives aren't easy to build, but they're worth it, she says.

"It disrupts their conveyor belt-style process," Vann said. "But we need to allow for the individual. The more similar our lives get, the more necessary it is to express our individuality.

"Our cars all look the same. Our clothes look the same," she said. "There's not much left where you can express yourself, except your home."