Monday, July 20, 2009

Straw Bale Construction

Straw Bale House Update: The back of the house (which served as the learning curve) has been "baled". What we've been calling the "catwalk", (a box-beam built above the living room windows made to suspend the bales) is being filled in. Below the living room windows another box beam will form a very long window seat. The picture of the window seat also shows the electrical box detail. The wiring runs within a chase at ground level with the bales on a "toe-up" seven inches above floor level.
Working with the Flax Straw has been challenging. It is extremely fibrous and hard on the saw blades (not to mention the skin on arms and legs) The big advantage to flax is the oil content, which makes it extremely rot resistant.

Kari is off on vacation for a few weeks and is being indoctrinated into the strawbale brother/sisterhood. Not exactly a relaxing vacation.

2 comments:

steve said...

your wifes call to me today brings me here to your blog ...interesting mix of construction ...woodframe strawbale and is that quadlock I see in the background??

looking forward to watching your plastering process hopefully you have time for photos between trowel fulls of lime :P

you can see our latest exterior lime project completed yesterday in West Vancouver here

http://authentic-plaster-fx.net/wordpress/?cat=4


steve
http://www.authentic-plaster-fx.net

Dave said...

Thanks for the pics Steve. We call the house a high-low tech hybrid. Post & Beam construction with the posts being ICF's.(ARXX)
Looking foreward to the plastering stage...another steep learning curve! Thanks for your interest and advice.