The first thing you want to do, Tom-Kat, is turn off your CAPS LOCK key. It's considered quite rude to type in all capital letters. By your personal information, I suppose you are located in Tennessee. I encourage you to track down a local engineer or architect familiar with straw bale post and beam construction and local state regulations. Here in California, it required special legislation to allow Straw Bale construction. Until the special legislation was passed (in 1995?), no one could use straw bale because it did not comply with our state mandated Uniform Building Code (UBC). I can also comment on your mention of using a composting toilet system. There are only a few counties in California which allow that type of system - most do not allow it based on environmental concerns (if you can believe that). All of the counties around here (Mother Lode area) do NOT allow that type of system. Good luck in your search.