RE: SB: Small, cheap, easy, and temporary

[luc <luc@meadowdance.org>]

> Strawbale is not cheap! That's issue #1.

Well, here's my thinking.  Speaking strictly in terms of the walls of this 
structure, if we make a load-bearing structure, our costs amount to windows 
and doors, the materials and labor for window and door frames, the cost of 
the bales, the labor involved in raising the walls, and the cost of 
whatever method we use to connect the bales together: the two I know of are 
rebar and strapping, although I'm sure there are others.   For my purposes 
if we can keep the labor down to a minimum, we don't have to count it as a 
cost because we already budget time here at Meadowdance for learning 
projects.  Thus we're faced with materials costs of the walls.  We have old 
doors, one of which we can use for the structure.  I intend to get a few 
old single-pane windows as salvage, so the costs there should be minimal. 
 We will have to pay for lumber to frame the doors and windows and for 
lintels.  We won't be finishing the walls with adobe or stucco or any other 
material, so there's no cost there.  So the only other costs will be for 
the bales (probably two string on edge, unless we want a rigorous test of 
insulation, which we might, in which case we'll use 3-string laid flat) and 
for the rebar or strapping and any tools we might need to rent or buy. 
 That seems very cheap to me compared to lumber.

Do you have some thoughts on the costs that I might not yet have accounted 
for?

Thanks,
Luc Reid

-----Original Message-----
From:	Richard Schmidt [SMTP:rrschmid@polymail.cpunix.calpoly.edu]
Sent:	Monday, April 09, 2001 12:37 PM
To:	luc
Subject:	Re: SB: Small, cheap, easy, and temporary

Strawbale is not cheap! That's issue #1.



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