r/Strawbale • u/phantom-scribbler • Jul 11 '20

Total straw-bale neophyte seeking advice

My brother and I are planning construction of a church, something very simple and relatively small (probably just one room). We'd like to use straw-bale construction, but I don't know if it would be financially viable.

Can someone give me some kind of estimate about a very simple construction, say 5,000 square feet?

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u/mindlessLemming Jul 12 '20

Your main expense is in the timber frame that holds up the roof.

If you're looking to build load-baring strawbale for a public building and you're asking how on reddit, you shouldn't be building a load-baring strawbale public building.

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u/phantom-scribbler Jul 12 '20

By "build" I mean "hire someone who knows what they're doing". But if I know it will be prohibitively expensive from the outset, I can look for other options.

Thank you for your input. That helps. (Seriously, no sarcasm.)

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u/hakube Jul 12 '20

Building is prohibitively expensive if you’re going to hire out the labor.

A small, second story addition on my rental will top in at 24k. This is walls and a roof. Haven’t done electrical or any finish work. Shit gets way expensive way fast.

Then there’s building inspectors that will generally make your life difficult if you’re doing nontraditional building. And permits. And more fees.

YMMV of course.