Ease of buildling non-traditional home, like strawbale in Kootenai County? (Idaho Falls: for sale, insurance)

[labellavita116]

Hi everyone, I was hoping someone could help me or direct me to learning more about the ease of building a home using alternative building methods in Kootenai County. I've been interested in strawbale for years now, but I know not all areas are open to strawbale building.

I'm not trying to put the cart before the horse but we are looking at relocating to the Coeur d'Alene area and its always been our dream to buy some land and build our own green home, using strawbale and timber frame. It would be nice to have an idea of what to expect before we pick up and move.

Thank you!

[javatom]

Your asking the wrong question. You must first decide if you want to spend that kind of money to be a non-conformist. Non-traditional and green structures cost more to build. That is a simple fact.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Hey Beautiful Life , welcome to the forum! I seem to remember we had a thread about nontrad building in NID a while back, and there were fewer restrictions in Bonner County than in Kootenai. You may want to do a search in the forum with key words and see what comes up. Good luck!

[Cnynrat]

I can't add any specifics, but I think you'd find even fewer restrictions in Boundary County. Take a look at their County Planning Commission website. Probably a good place to start for the other two counties as well.

[labellavita116]

thanks Javatom, I do understand, but for me, I am asking the right question, as living in a world that conforms to the common way of doing things and the environmental toxins that comes with it, has made me ill, so for me, its the right question. I need to live in a cleaner environment! We could switch the builder grade house we have out here for one out there, but that's not what we are looking to do. Thank you.

[labellavita116]

Hey Clark Fork Fantast! LOL You got it! That's exactly what I'm looking for! A beautiful life! Thank you, don't know why I didn't think to do that, I've searched the forums for pretty much everything else, maybe I thought my question would be more non-traditional.

TY!

[labellavita116]

Thank you, Cnynrat, sounds like a good idea. I guess to add to that I could possibly contact some builders and see if they will answer my questions. Thank you!

[banjomike]

Bear in mind that there may be homeowner insurance difficulties in building a non-trad home. I suggest you check with some insurers before you commit to the idea. and it may be possible that the insurer may become the determinator on where you select to live here if you do move.

I've had a bit of experience with a straw bale studio built in Utah. It's like a very small house, but it has no plumbing or heating, other than a small electric heater (which is all it really needs in the wintertime). The original plans were to plumb it, and I don't know why the owners did not; it could have come from a number of reasons that may have not had anything to do with the studio's construction, or it may have.

Basement homes were commonplace here in S.E. Idaho for many years, and many still exist. During and after the Depression, many basements were poured at a time when loans were unavailable or unaffordable, and the basements were essentially simply roofed over and covered with topsoil, much like the pioneer's dugouts. When the times got better, the owners just dismantled the roof and built a house on top of the finished basement while continuing to live in it during the construction.
My niece owns one; it has a full (but rather small) kitchen in the basement and 2 finished bedrooms. The furnace is now in what was the original living room, and the entree basement structure is now below the house's present living room, dining room, bathroom, and upstairs hallway, but is accessible only through what was once an outside set of steps, like a cellar entrance. The steps were later enclosed with an exterior window wall and an enlarged entrance.

The first homeowners built the house in 3 steps; the living room area and all was the second, after the basement, and the current large kitchen was the last. The kitchen sets on only a foundation with a crawlspace below. The first family built it as they could, and never took a loan out with a bank for home construction.

The place is in Iona, a small pioneer village that's 7 miles away from Idaho Falls. The original townsite is unique; each lot was required to have 3 acres, so that the first residents could have enough land to winter their livestock and to provide a lot of garden and/or crop space during the growing season.

While many of those early lots were later sub-divided into 1 1/2 acre parcels, there are still a lot of the 3-acre plots. My niece's place has a sound old barn, 2 small corrals, 2 chicken coops and a workshop on her property, and still has plenty of room for a huge garden. Her particular lot concentrated all that on the east side of the lot, leaving over an acre of a narrow strip to the west that serves as pasture for their horses. That's not enough ground to keep them in home-grown hay, but it's enough to allow them to graze during the spring months, when hay is most scarce and expensive.

I'm just giving you some ideas here as to how a small acreage can work. Iona is an exception for sure, because it's a fully developed small town now,with full sewer, water and power services and it's own police and fire dept. It has grown outside the original townsite considerably, but the new side of town does not have many of the large lots.
These old lots do come up for sale regularly, and Iona still allows all common livestock to be kept in town. It's a great place that combines heritage, rural lifestyle and small town life all at the same time, and is very close to one of Idaho's largest cities.

[labellavita116]

thanks banjomike, I had not heard of that before, very interesting. I've seen homesteading books where they show you how you can allot your land, I'd like to see these 3 acre parcels in person, I'm sure it would be very informative.

I'll have to find the link, but there recently was strawbale building codes added to the national building code standards (probably didn't say that quite right, but you get my meaning). There are now national standards, so the hope is that it will make it easier for people to have a strawbale house built. where ever they live. I know some areas are already pretty open, I think there are quite a few in AZ but I have no desire to move down there.

Thanks again!

[banjomike]

Hi, labellavita…
In truth, most of those lots now look like a big lot in any city these days. Most of the old homes have been either extensively remodeled or were torn down and replaced, and the old barns, corrals and pastures are now gone and there's nothing but a lot of lawn. The majority of the lots have been subdivided into 2 parcels as well. 125 years changes a lot of everything.

It will be interesting to watch what happens with Iona's zoning in the future. Residents are still free to raise and keep livestock throughout the old part of Iona, so you can see pigs, horses, calves, sheep, llamas, mules and lots of cats and dogs. There are many huge gardens. Some of the lots are nothing but run down weed patches. Others have more pavement than dirt.

There is a big urban move toward feeding a city's citizens with home-grown produce. Restrictions on gardens and livestock are a hot zoning issue all over these days. But in Iona, the fight is for more restriction, not less.

The Iona founders were all farmers. They lived in town, but they had fields that surrounded the place, and everyone was accustomed to the noises and smells of a farm. Increasingly, folks who are living in the new side of town object to those things, and they don't like the noises, dust and commotion of tilling the lands that are still being farmed. Those subdivisions all border at least one working farm.

It's a sign of how much we have changed as a society.