“Buy local.”  It certainly isn’t a new concept, but one that has seen strong growth as people in the Upper Arkansas Valley vote with their dollars to support their friends and neighbors.

We’re shopping at businesses where we know the owners, flocking to the CCFA Farm Market on Saturday mornings to buy local produce, seeking out honey from local beehives and drinking local wine from Vino Salida.

Timbo Scursso, founder of Solarwise, is taking the concept one big step forward by encouraging clients to  “Build local and build natural.”

Building local and natural represents a way of business that goes far beyond just using a local contractor for your next building project.  It means incorporating as many locally-available materials, resources and environmental benefits as possible into every aspect of your next home or commercial structure.

Walls going up on Duhaime home.

Scursso specializes in strawbale building, an age-old material and technique that has come back into vogue with people looking for a highly-efficient, natural and environmental way to build.  With Central Colorado’s abundant sunshine, dry climate, and cold winters, it’s an ideal choice for local conditions.  However, buying straw locally is just the first step.

“Part of my philosophy as a designer and builder is that building shouldn’t be entirely about the bottom dollar, but about using local materials and local labor to create a highly-efficient and beautiful structure,” explained Scursso. “I also want to keep as much money in the local economy as possible.”

To that end, Scursso has scoured regional resources to make this a reality.  Solarwise sources straw bales from within a 200 mile range, usually from La Jara.  He uses clays and crusher fines from Antonito in the San Luis Valley, or Cañon City in the Arkansas River Valley.  Rough-milled wood comes from an owner-operated mill near Saguache, and the trusses come from a Colorado business.  Heat comes from the sun, which is always local.

Applying natural plaster.

Of course, building a new home on the face of the Earth is never an entirely defensible thing environmentally, but if you are going to do it, choose to create the most efficient design you can.  To maximize resource use, Scursso customizes his designs to take full advantage of each site’s passive solar potential and each home is built ready to utilize solar electricity production and solar water heating.

To compliment these natural resources, he also incorporates the most up-to-date technology available from highly efficient lighting systems, to boiler-powered in-floor radiant heating, to deep window wells that both soak up heat and reflect natural light.

“A Solarwise home is a high performance home,” promises Scursso.  “But it’s not only about the performance and efficiency, your house should also take care of you.  Living in a healthy home is better for your personal health.”

By using natural plasters on the walls, adobe interior walls and even adobe floors, one can avoid many of the surfaces in a traditional house that would be covered with chemical paints, commercial glues and other industrial products.

Straw walls of the Sapper Home.

Besides being healthy, people who live in strawbale houses say that the living space tends to feel spiritual as well.  “Part of the reason for this positive feeling is that each design is custom,” explains Scursso.  “Each design incorporates the sun and utilizes natural light, heat and cooling.  The interiors are designed to be multifunctional and open.  The strawbale method lends itself to artistry, incorporating handmade touches when working with the straw and plaster, providing not only function but beauty.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  So, why isn’t everyone building with straw?  One of the reasons is that it’s not the typical frame and siding method of house construction, so people don’t know all the benefits of building local and natural.  Another factor is that Americans shop by primarily by price and this natural method of building costs around 5% more than conventional building.

“One of the misconceptions about natural building is that it’s inexpensive.  And while the materials can cost less, the amount of labor that goes into a hand-built house more than makes of the difference,” says Scursso.  Basically, it takes more time to mold and sculpt natural clay than it does to nail gun chipboard to a 2×6 frame.

For the additional cost, you get a local, custom, high performance home built primarily from materials that grow naturally in the nearby environment.  If you have the money, it seems like a good tradeoff.

Who wouldn’t like to show off their new home and be able to say “These walls come from the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  This floor comes from the Arkansas River Valley.  These beams come from beetle-kill pine from Trout Creek Pass.  The cool air in summertime inside the house is because we used straw grown by farmers in the San Luis Valley.”

Strawbale house ready for mud.

It’s an aesthetic style of building that combines the positive concept of buying local with building local, making full use of the materials available in this region.  It’s not only a way of building, but a philosophy for how one wants to live.  Let your home reflect your values.

“Building new houses is not going to change the world, but it’s one way to start a paradigm shift in building,” Scursso summarized “houses should be local, natural and take care of their occupants.  Those are my underlying goals as a designer and builder in Central Colorado.”

Solarwise is owned and operated by Timbo Scursso who also designs and builds each project, from start to finish.  He calls it “one point accountability.”  He recently completed a commercial project for the Walking Mountains Science School.

For more information, visit the new Solarwise website at www.Solarwisellc.com or contact Timbo Scursso directly at 970-376-3495.

Finished strawbale home in Salida.