STRAW BALE WALL - A PRACTICE

Hi Folks,

Things are slowly moving forwards, tank in, driveway installed and a practice straw bale wall which will eventually be a centre wall for a shed, cold storage, conservatory, workshop or whatever else we happen to think of at the time, but for now it is a wall.

This was constructed in the following stages:

(1) Construct bottom and top boxing, (protect bales and aid in compression later)

(2) Build up a footing for bottom boxing to sit on: (Gravel and sand) to stop wall from sinking into the soft ground

(3) Lay bottom boxing and fill with crushed rock (19mm screening)

(4) Insert compression strapping under boxing: must be twice length of wall + 1 m

(5) Stack bales

(6) Compress a little

(7) Bang wall into alignment with a wide / flat bale hammer

(8) Recompress and Viola!!, a straw bale wall.

We didn't get around to rendering the wall just yet, we will discuss this in more detail later.

STRAW BALE ADVICE + TOOLS

This morning before the driveway fiasco I visited Lars (he owner built a straw bale house on the island recently and has been a great mentor) and he has just lent me a whole batch of straw bale building tools and equipment which we will use next weekend when we build a practice straw bale wall on the property.

This wall will be about 6m long by about 6ft high and will probably be a future wall for a shed, but for now it will serve well as a north facing thermal mass wall that will provide a great micro climate for growing things. This practise wall will be a project that will enable us to test out our straw bale wall raising and clay rendering skills before we have to put these skills to use for real on the house. We will stack and compress this wall as we would a house wall and it will be a great way to become comfortable with building with straw.

For this project we will require pine timber for the bottom and top plates, a length of compression strapping (this is specifically designed to take the strain in compression), crushed rock and sand for the base and bottom plate, 30 bales, a load of clay, sand and lime, a concrete mixer, bale twine, baling tools, and a assortment of tools.

Lars will be available to provide a helping hand and we will try and rope in a few mates to help us particularly with the rendering even on a small job this can be a difficult job.
I will write a future blog detailing the tools and costing for this job.

1/08/10 DRIVE WAY & Other Stuff

Today began with a rethink on how the driveway was configured. The Three times that Leesh has seen it now she has commented that it has been too high and was I sure that it was low enough in the ground.

In total denial I assured her that it was fine, but packed in loose, spongy clay and sitting so that water was running around it and not through the culvert pipe, it was never going to work, and after two weeks I finally collected the resolve to attack the job, of course like every day recently on the Island it was wet and windy. Firstly I scraped back the gravel and then had to shovel out the clay, which of course was sodden and heavy and difficult to shovel. I then removed the pipe culvert and dug out the ditch to make it deeper. After I was satisfied relined the bottom with crushed rock and then stacked in the pipe with loose gravel around the pipe, now it is sitting at about ground level and the water appears to be entering and exiting in a satisfactory manner.
After three hours of back braking labour in the pouring rain I finally had the culvert pipe reinstated and backfilled with gravel, with all the clay material removed, it appears to be much more effective. If only I had done this before.

Also worth noting I’m using a plastic culvert which is specifically designed for agricultural applications and can take the load of a tractor. This is counter to the council’s wishes for a concrete pipe. However as the concrete is much more expensive, $600.00 (additional delivery from Melbourne), much less easy to handle and is prone to becoming brittle and cracking over time. The plastic is easy to handy ½ the price and is very durable. So we’ll see how we go with the council.

We purchased 6m of pipe at $300 including delivery
Also for the job I required a 6 cubic meters of crushed rock ($60 per cubic meter) and after the driveway settles in about two or three weeks I will apply a layer of finer rock dust to compact into the drive.

The total cost of the driveway job will come to about $700.00 including about 8hrs of labour. The council will build the culvert for you for $1100 (excluding the rest of the drive) so there is a significant cost saving involved with by organising this yourself, also crushed rock driveways are a good cheap alternative to concrete. However it is thought to be diplomatic to see what the neighbours have done and aim to replicate this standard.
For the general construction job(s) we also brought a council road obstruction permit which costs $50.00 and comes into effective immediately from payment and lasts one year upon issue.
I will have to get up early to finish off the job tomorrow, joy.

Cheers AJ