Ask Kevin FAQ

One of the greatest barriers to establishing a green ethos in the mainstream has been the common perception that living green means living in a yurt, eating tofu and wearing hemp trousers. I want to promote the idea that whatever you want to build, or however you want to live, you can do it greener. It’s about making conscious choices, not doing without. Making a single green choice is a step in the right direction. And the more green choices we make in our day to day lives, the more demand we create for greener products and services. To me, this approach holds far more promise for all of us in the long run than the immediate moral gratification of being a green purist.

You are right, steel framing is quite high in embodied energy. We really had a dilemma there. It’s one of those decisions that had to be made at the time of building. As we say in the show, wood is the better alternative, but because we are in earthquake country, we would easily have used as much wood as a conventional builder to provide the structural support required by our building codes. And we really wanted to infill the full length of the walls with bales for the best insulation. Also, steel was inexpensive at the time. The steel package cost me half of what the wood package would have. Now, however, the prices are quite comparable.

We could have done things differently if we had built a single story house in a less earthquake prone area. Then, we could have built what is called a load bearing straw bale house, in which the bales provide the structural strength and the use of wood is kept to interior walls and roof trusses.

My pocketbook and design sense got the better of my environmental concern on that day. When I do it again, I will try to do it better.

You're correct that the house isn’t small. I designed a smaller house to begin with, as my ideal green house; then, certain factors influenced the design. Let me explain the reasons behind my choices.  

First: The house is not on a small city lot where it covers the whole property. It fits the acre and a third quite nicely, and is actually modest in a community where people regularly build 10,000 and 15,000 square foot homes. I wanted to show people who build those homes that, even if they are going to build big, they can simplify the design and incorporate things like straw bales, recycled materials and non-toxic materials so that they have less of an impact on the planet and provide healthier living spaces for their families. I've had 1,500 people from the community through the house, including many architects and contractors. They are influential people who can guide the community.  

Second: The house is designed to entertain. I’m a very social person and I live in one of the most popular places to visit in the country. I have friends and relatives from all over the world who come to visit me regularly. I have a large guest suite that is occupied most of the time. It's about 600 square feet of space, under the same roof, where my parents can stay for weeks on end and feel like they have privacy. I love providing visitors with a place that’s as nice as home.

Third: This is all about exploring new ways of building. People's consciousness of green building exists along a continuum. I am not perfect, but I want to give people a taste of what can be done and inspire them to see that they can build beautiful homes that are easier on the planet and much healthier to live in.

We spent about $250 per square foot, but we live in a very expensive area of the country for construction labor, and our earthquake codes require a lot of building that is not necessary in other parts of the country. Also, we went with top of the line fixtures to meet the standards for homes in this area. It’s not unusual for people to spend $400 or more per square foot around here. That said, straw bale building with earthen floors and other simple green solutions can be very inexpensive. Others have built straw bale homes for as little as $140 per square foot, and here is a link to a 1,200 square foot home in the Sonoran Desert that came in at $47 per square foot.

Yes! Of course, I only feel comfortable recommending products I’ve used and experts I’ve worked with or know well. Take a look at our Episode Guides; in every possible instance we’ve provided links to the experts and products we used while building my home. There are also several great service directories out there, including greenbuildingblocks.com, greenbuilder.com and oikos.com.

You may have found these online resources already, but, if not, they are a good place to start:

www.strawbale.com — An informational site that includes video clips.
A.C. Morrison Construction in Jacksonville, Oregon, specializes in straw bale building.
The Last Straw — The International Journal of Straw Bale and Natural Building.
The California Straw Building Association — Includes information on an upcoming conference in Petaluma, CA scheduled for spring 2007.

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The day before the tractors dug in, I had a realization that I was supposed to create a television program to share my process, and then a web site to give others the tools they need to join the green revolution. The project turned out to be the perfect vehicle for what I’ve done most: building and being in front of the camera. Overnight, I found a crew to start filming the construction. My mission with the show is to give people a language so that they can talk to architects, builders, designers and suppliers about building green homes for the 21st century.

I grew up in a family of builders/designers, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As a young child, my grandfather, a master cabinetmaker, taught me the fine art of woodworking. I learned construction from my father at an early age and have watched my mother design and decorate all my life. I have been part of the dozens of custom homes the two of them built together, individually and with their new spouses. From my mother, I learned to design for aesthetic effect and from my father got a great sense of frugality, and economy of materials and labor.

I graduated from the University of Colorado with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and an emphasis in Marketing, in 1984. While in school, I got into the modeling and acting world and was able to travel the world and work. I love architecture and was happy to study homes and building techniques around the world. In the mid-'80s, I began to build and remodel my own houses, while working as an actor. Had I been a better actor I would not have had time to build and design homes, but as fortune would have it, I was able to do both fairly successfully.

Learning from my years of building conventionally, I quickly grew to dislike the waste of natural resources and the amount of toxic materials used in traditional building methods. Friends would make fun of me for finding old cabinetry, doors, windows and fixtures for my homes, but I couldn’t stand to use new, particle boarded products that were of lesser quality and less healthy.

Then, in 1994, I ventured to Bali, Indonesia where I was introduced to bamboo. I returned a year later to attend the 4th International Bamboo Conference. Suspecting that this material could be a saving grace for the planet, I studied and designed homes I would like to build with bamboo. But I knew that getting a bamboo house permitted in California would be next to impossible in the near future, so I researched materials related to bamboo that could be an acceptable alternative material. Straw bales were what I had been looking for.

A year of designing and 18 months of building later, my dreams were realized in the state-of-the-art, straw bale home where my family now lives.