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Frank Varga

* Growing group opting for local natural home-building materials
* County has approved about a half-dozen straw homes
* Supplies not always readily available

GUEMES ISLAND — People often doubt Jerry Frelix when he says his home is made of straw.

But then he takes them to the west side of his house where the stucco exterior gives way to a clear plastic, framed panel that reveals the home’s interior insulation: Tightly packed straw bales.

“A lot of people don’t believe until they see the truth window,” Frelix said. Finished in 1997, the Guemes Island home of Jerry and Constance Frelix was the first code-approved straw bale home to be built in Skagit County. Since then, the county has approved about a half-dozen straw homes, said county Building Official Tim DeVries.

The Frelixes are among a small but growing group of Americans who are opting to buck the traditional construction methods of synthetic insulation, dry wall and cement. Instead, more people are building their shelters in a more environmentally friendly way by using the natural elements and resources directly around them such as clay, straw and mud.

The practice will be highlighted Wednesday at a presentation sponsored by the Skagit Permaculture Guild. Jack Stephens, executive director of the Eugene, Ore.-based Natural Building Network, will talk from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Skagit Valley Food Co-op in downtown Mount Vernon.

More people may be building homes of natural materials today, but the idea is far from new. Stephens points to the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, an adobe-constructed village that was built by the Taos Indians nearly 1,000 years ago and is still being lived in today, as an example. And as little as 100 years ago, most Americans lived in homes made primarily of local materials, instead of mass-produced items from another state or country, Stephens said.

But now, as oil prices rise, concerns of global warming grow and the cost of traditional construction materials increases, home owners are taking a second look at the old practice.

“People generally are becoming more aware of what our current building behavior is doing to the planet,” Stephens said.

Moreover, Stephens said modern home construction could even affect people’s health. He cited a World Health Organization report that said 30 percent of all U.S. homes contain toxic level sufficient enough to create environmental illnesses. Asthma, allergies and sinus problems have been tied to indoor environmental conditions.

Another local natural home supporter is Rick Petrick, owner of the Anacortes construction company Wood Ducks Natural Home Builders, which built the Frelix home and three others in Skagit County. Petrick is an energetic promoter of not only straw-bale construction, but also using building blocks made of mortar and recycled Styrofoam or wood fiber, making homes of rammed earth, and estuary sewage treatment systems (where aquatic plant roots purify used water), among many other green building practices.

However, Petrick said it can be difficult for builders to obtain such environmentally-friendly materials from traditional construction suppliers. Currently, he has to special order many of his supplies. And many contractors are more comfortable with using the more traditional materials. But Petrick insists it only takes a few pioneers to make natural home building more mainstream.

“There’s going to be a resurgence coming in building techniques,” Petrick said. “More and more, we are going to be forced to (build) sustainably.”

Frelix has met many doubters, but he said those same people often become intrigued by the concept once they see his own home. From the outside, it looks like any other house. Smooth, earthen stucco hides the straw underneath. Perhaps the only difference is that the approximately 20-inch-wide straw bales create wide, recessed window sills. And best yet, Frelix said the straw bales maintain comfortable indoor temperatures year-round.

“This house is so cool in the summertime and warm in the winter,” Frelix said. “I wouldn’t go back to a conventional house.”

* Franny White can be reached at 360-416-2148 or .