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New eco-centre shows bales are an environmentally friendly way to build
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North Darling, of Darling Bros. Consruction, center contractor displays grasshoppers found onsite.
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The Peace Regional Eco-Centre on the first day of bale raising. Bale raising on a straw bale building usually involves alot of volunteer help from the communtiy.
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Darcy Fischer, Claude Labrecque, Daniel Plamondon help to stack bales on a truck bed to move to the center. Bales were Robert Boucher’s land.
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Susan Thompson
For Spotlight
It’s harvest time, and farmers around the region are baling their straw. Most of those bales will be used for livestock bedding, but a handful of farmers in the Peace River area are putting their bales to another use. Their straw bales are being used as the building blocks of a brand new recycling centre in Peace River.
The Peace Regional Eco-Centre is a major commercial project in the final stages of construction.
“The new Eco-Centre is an alternative energy showcase,” says Wanda Laurin, a Peace River town councillor who is also involved with both the Peace River Recycling Society and the Peace River Environmental Society. Laurin has been one of the driving forces behind the eco-centre project. “The designer put a whole raft of alternative energy systems in it.”
Those alternative energy systems include solar panels for electricity, passive solar heat collection using south-facing windows, a passive geothermal floor, and wood heat using a high-efficiency wood stove. In fact, builders estimate there is already enough waste wood saved from construction to heat the building for two months.
The straw bale construction of the building also provides a very high level of insulation, since the R factor of the bales is very high.
“The low end is R 30 and the high end is R 50,” says Laurin.
If left unheated in winter most of the building would not freeze for three weeks. The only area that would freeze would be the area around one large overhead door.
The straw bales will be encased in concrete and stuccoed, making them air tight and fire proof. While most people think straw bales burn easily, they are actually less likely to burn than conventional materials because the straw is packed so tightly. There is not enough air available to allow a fire to spread, much like trying to burn a phone book rather than a single piece of paper.
The eco-centre also has a large cistern, and will use rain water collection to fill it. The centre will even demonstrate wind power by using small vertical access wind turbines to power LED courtyard lights.
“That way if someone is looking at buying them, they can see how much they generate per year,” Laurin explains.
Building the walls of a straw bale building takes the help of an entire community. Volunteers are asked to come help stack the bales, creating the feeling of an old-style barn raising.
On September 16 and 17, volunteers from all over the area came out to help build the walls of the new Peace Regional Eco-Centre.
“When I put a call out to come and do bales lots of people got back to me,” Laurin says. About 25 to 30 volunteers came out each day to get the bales in the walls to eye level.
After that, building contractors Darling Brothers Construction took the bales all the way to the ceiling for safety reasons.
North Darling has been building straw bale buildings for seven years, ever since his father Ron Darling decided to build a straw bale home for himself.
“I think they’re a good idea,” North Darling says. “What I like about it is it’s old technology that works. It’s not mechanical. I like things that out-perform technology, basic, sound, building techniques.”
Darling says despite the fact that the normal building establishment and the average person might find the building technique very unusual, it’s not such a crazy idea.
“None of the techniques we’re using are revolutionary. What’s revolutionary is that the politicians are now behind this type of building,” Darling says.
The Peace Regional Eco-Centre will operate under the umbrella of the East Peace Regional Landfill in Northern Sunrise County, and is the result of a co-operative effort between Northern Sunrise County, the town of Peace River, and the village of Nampa. A CAMRIF grant also provided two thirds of the funding for the project.
The eco-centre will even function as part of the area’s disaster planning, since it is hurricane proof and can function off the grid if there’s a natural disaster.
“It’s a proud day to see we’re at this stage,” says Northern Sunrise Country CAO Bob Miles.
While a few local politicos have been the driving force behind getting the straw bale eco-centre built, but straw bale construction is becoming more popular in general due to escalating energy prices and the recession.
“Very few design groups use straw bales,” says architect Paul Belanger of Living Design Systems, based out of Edmonton and Edson.
“But we’re finding the design groups focused on conventional design are slow now, while we’re busier than ever.”
Belanger believes solar design should be attractive to individuals even if the eco-centre is a commercial building. He designed the eco-centre to be beautiful, with rounded corners constructed using foam.
“It doesn’t have to be a box. The more curves the more feminine, and there is too much masculine architecture already,” Belanger says.
Aside from demonstrating environmentally friendly building techniques, the eco-centre will function mainly as a recycling centre.
Several large windows will allow people to sort and drop off their recyclables during the day.
At night the main windows will be locked but people will still be able to drop off their recyclables in large outdoor bins, allowing the centre to essentially operate 24/7.
A large automatic baler will bale cardboard into manageable bundles.
“Hopefully by mid-December it’ll be up and running,” says site operator Cas Valstar.
“I’d like to see the Christmas rush come here instead of our current building.”
Valstar says although Peace River residents already recycle through the old recycling centre, they could do more.
“Personally I think we’re 50 to 60 per cent of what we could be,” Valstar says.
He says it takes just time for recycling to become socially acceptable.
“At first, people get teased for recycling. But everything’s contagious and it catches on. As the percentage sways, it’s the people who don’t recycle who get a hard time.”
Valstar worked at a recycling centre in Rocky Mountain House before moving to Peace River.
“I watched it double in Rocky in about a year,” he says. “We’re a little behind the rest of the province up here.”
Raising environmental awareness is part of Valstar’s job description.
“I still get calls from people who think it all ends up in the landfill anyway,” he says.
“But every bale of we make saves 10 trees, because it takes 10 trees to make that much paper. So if we’re doing maybe 100 bales a month it’s 1000 trees we save each month, and that’s just paper product.”
Valstar says recycling renews resources and keeps them out of the landfill.
The eco-centre will also have a put-and-take where people can drop off items they don’t want anymore and take items they can use.
“When I started that was a no-no, and now it’s common practice,” says Valstar.
Valstar points out that using straw bales also helps out the local farming community.
“Coming from a farming background, I know we stopped making square bales 20 years ago. Now there’s a new market for them again,” Valstar says.
Falher-area farmer Darcy Fischer agrees. He made the square bales with the help of his neighbours and delivered them to the Peace River construction site after hearing about the project on Nampa Tradio.
“There’s still a certain amount of square bales. It’s just not as huge a market as round bales,” he says. Square bales are still mainly used by people with horses, but as straw bale construction becomes a more popular option, that could change.
For now, they’re not always easy to come by.
“They’re lucky we could still get straw,” Fischer says.
“Most of it’s combined already. Most of the big farmers wouldn’t even bother.”
Fischer and his wife Carol have four children, and they got involved in large part because they’re thinking about their children’s future.
“We’re trying to teach our kids about the environment,” Carol Begin-Fischer says. She spent a couple of days helping load and stack bales for the project with her husband, and she says she feels it’s a way to pay it forward.
The Fischer children were also involved and helped out too.
“Our kids will go on field trips to this building and they’ll be able to say their Dad made the bales for it.”
If all goes well, there might even be more straw bale buildings built in the area in future.
Darcy Fischer hopes so.
“It’s something people need to look at,” he says.
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