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talk me out of strawbales
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K
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21 Nov ’13 - 11:38 am
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I am planning and thinking of the cabin, I know I said I wanted to do the firetower, but after the building everything with cement, earthbag etc. I am leaning towards the least amount of physical labor involved method. Strawbale is seeming more and more appealing to me. I can stack strawbale all day long. I already have the skill set of applying stucco etc. I can build a cement block stub wall and surface bond it.

secondday640.jpg

http://www.grit.com/.....z2lIZlfKEU

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Kamikaze-Emu
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21 Nov ’13 - 12:51 pm
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Funny enough I was going to say the downside the is amount of labour, but I was contrasting it against convention construction. Aside from pounding tires for an earth ship I can't imagine a much more labour intensive way to build than the earth bagging you did. Given your high tolerance for punishment straw might be right up your alley!

I do think the mud/stucco work is going to be very time intensive. Many coats are often required so if you have a lot of wall space you are looking at a significant amount of time.

Would you have your bales be your support walls, or would you frame and then infill with bales?

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K
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21 Nov ’13 - 12:56 pm
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Would probably frame and use the infill method

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PorkChopsMmm
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21 Nov ’13 - 1:25 pm
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I really like the idea but I would worry about keeping the bales dry during the build. We get some heavy rains sometime and I think that would be hard to recover from. I like the insulation value and the low cost, however.

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21 Nov ’13 - 1:33 pm
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agreed pork, that's why I'm thinking of the infill method, build the frame and roof first, make sure we have a week of dry weather and then just go crazy stacking strawbales, my other thought is doing 4 different methods, one wall straw, one wall cordwood, one wall stone, one wall cob, that way I can experiment with different methods.

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bad_astronaut
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21 Nov ’13 - 4:02 pm
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I second the 4 walls in 4 styles method.

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bad_astronaut
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21 Nov ’13 - 4:02 pm
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Just be sure to put the stone wall to the south.

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21 Nov ’13 - 4:44 pm
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Quote:
Quote from bad_astronaut on November 21, 2013, 16:02

Just be sure to put the stone wall to the south.

I was debating between this and the cob, which do you think would have a greater thermal mass?

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