Re: SB: strawbale contents

[billc_lists@greenbuilder.com]

Leanne wrote:
>...a shortage of strawbales, thus over
>doubling sb prices.....i've been exploring other options for the 
>straw. there is a
>local guy who bales up grass, and i've been told by a reliable source that
>the bales are packed even tighter than a normal bale of hay. i'm assuming,
>although i haven't checked it out yet, that it's 'bladey grass' very tall
>grass with reasonably wide leaves, as it grows quite prolificly around the
>area (the coweys prefer other grasses).
>i'm sure the great goddess will shower inches of rain down upon us before i
>need the bales, but even then, this baled grass will be cheaper than straw
>bales...so....any ideas? will baled grass decompose in my walls?

A fair chance of it.  Grass contains more nutrients than straw, 
therefore it'll tend to draw more critters, including the type of 
critters that decompose grass and could make your walls into compost.

Baled grass, if wet, also has a higher potential to self-combust - as 
it decomposes, it generates heat just like your compost pile should. 
Pack a bunch of insulation around that and you can make fire.

OTOH, the original Nebraska homes were baled hay, not straw. 
Presumably it was well dried first.  Maybe they were just lucky.

>  would the
>insulation values be similar?


Probably less.  There will likely be less air space between and among 
and inside the grass bale, and multiple tiny air pockets are what 
cause the insulation property.

>is it an appropriate material to use? hey?
>hey?

Probably not the best choice.  I'd buck up and pay for straw.  If the 
wall system is roughly 15% of the cost of the house, and the 
materials part is half of that (7.5% including bales, plaster, pins, 
etc), you might be raising the total cost of your home by 5% or so.

>also, i have a slow combustion stove to put into my as-yet-imaginary home,
>and i've been wondering about the wall behind the stove - would anyone
>recommend/not recommend having sb behind it? i'm just thinking of the heat,
>although i know sb seems to be more fire proof than wood, could it affect
>the bales by ecouraging them to decompose?? or any other issue? i just
>thought i'd like to check that out with you people first before i go ahead.

I'll let someone else tackle this...

>
>**i'm curious about the recent mention of ivy growing over sb walls - my
>mum always told me if ivy grew over wooden houses the roots would grow
>inbetween the boards and push them apart and rot them etc - could ivy roots
>grow into little cracks that 'might' be in the render?

Yep

>if it's an earthen
>render, would the roots make it crumble??

Yep.

>**any ideas about what paints could be used on an earth render?(besides
>ochre) i couldn't possibly build my own house and not have murals of
>mermaids and angelwings and moons on it - what would be the point of all
>that hard work, if it can't look like a princess factory??

Don't paint - If you're plastering with earth, just use different 
colors of earth.

Doni & Kaki Kiefmeyer of Moab, UT, at a natural building shindig I 
attended a few years back, had a board "painted" with about a dozen 
different earth colors that they'd picked up in their travels mixed 
with lime putty.  It was a broad array of colors, from yellows to 
greens to reds, some quite surprising.  If they saw a color they 
liked in a field or road cut, they'd just pull over and fill a few 
buckets and toss them in the back of the pickup.  I'm sure that with 
a little ingenuity, you can have your princess factory.
-- 
Bill Christensen
billc@greenbuilder.com

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