SB: RE: A Better Mousetrap - my mousetrap in concept

[Andreas Georgiades <AGeorgiades@Gain.com>]

Mike, I personally think this is a fantastic way to build. Congratulations,
I'd love to see some pics of your house.

I'm seriously leaning that way since the house I designed is a two story
with a small footprint (34' x 34' exterior, 30' x 30' -or in bale speak: 9
bales by 9 bales- interior space with 2' 3 string bales laid flat) with all
the obvious cost benefits. 

Also, in order to reduce costs, the second floor walls (north and south)
will start at 5 or 6 feet height and gradually go up to 11-12' at the top of
the gable roof (i.e cathedral ceiling upstairs). The roof slope with face
true south where it will host an expanding array of solar panels and passive
solar water heaters that will provide hot water and radiant floor heat
(during the "brutal" 33°F Tucson winters). 

The roof trusses will be a 'supertruss' where it will allow for the
catherdral ceiling [McDonald book, page 92 -I think-). Since a loadbearing
structure is out of the question, I slowly, and very elementally I might
admit, started devising the same concept as that explained below in
excellent detail that would create a galvanized cage.

If anybody is interested in my design (my 2 cents worth of designing
ability), I'll add that the roof will overhang to a 10' wraparound (N, S, E)
porch that will act as  living/storage area/earth plaster protector. Also,
the south side will be passive solar with a big rock 2 way
fireplace/wall/heat mass capacitor structure that will emit the stored
thermal energy to the whole downstairs living area. 

Downstairs, by the way, will be one big room minus a bathroom and a pantry.
The stairs will be on the west side as a big spiral rock staircase that will
connect the downstairs to the upstairs and will have the shape of a castle
structure (cool for the kids). The reason I'm not using a wraparound porch
on the west side, is that the house will be backed up to the hill we own and
is pretty safe from horizontal rains and most importantly (In Arizona) the
summer western sun that cooks the walls of a house like a magnifying glass
on an unsuspecting ant. 

Also, on the east side there will be an upstairs patio running the whole
length (~30') for some casual viewing of the majestic views the Tortolita
mountains offer. The Elevation of our land is 3500' with an average of 6.4
sun hours/day. That's 640wh for each 100W panel per day when using a 1 or 2
axis tracker, approx. 30% less with stationary position at 32 degrees
elevation (for AZ). I have plans for running off-grid (Solar/Wind power
@48Volts DC + a big array of Deep Cycle batteries (Costco only $60 each) for
about 2,000 Ah of energy, along with a small generator (5KW) for emergency
backup power and battery conditioning (never let your batteries dicharge
deeply before recharging - a 10% cycle is recommended for maximum battery
life)

Also, the nice metal roof will graciously be used for water harvesting, grey
and black water plumming for watering, Radiantec floor heating.

The exterior plaster will be earth -the beautiful dark red earth that we
have in the property- fortified with asphalt emulsion and the interior
probably the same with lime added.
Initially, when we first bought the land (18 acres that includes a wash with
beautiful thick sand, gentle and steep slopes) and saw how much beautiful
rock there is, the cheapest way to go would be to buid a rock house with
very thick exterior walls for thermal mass capability, but I've been a
memeber of this list for over 2 years and I love SB too much not to use it.
I gotta have insulation for the summers and passive solar orientation and
design for the sunny winters.

Anyway, sorry for wasting your bandwidth, I just had to share my dream with
this wonderful mailing list (God, we're SO much better than the Pepsi
Vending Machine mailing list)

Andreas in soon to be scorching Tucson AZ

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Rubey [mailto:Rubey@starband.net]
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 10:17 AM
To: strawbale@crest.org
Subject: SB: A Better Mousetrap


Good Morning,
I would like to share the technique with which we built our home. It is
called the Big Heart Balecage and is named after Big Heart construction of
Gainesville Texas. The bale-cage part is that you literally create what
looks like a huge cage. This idea was developed by Bob Skinner and he has
given me permission to share it with you. There is a lot of room for
improvisation in how you employ this technique. Please be open minded, this
is really different.
You may well see, as we have, that it is indeed a better way.
Below are the steps we went through in building our home.

The construction is done in all light gauge galvanized steel with red iron
reinforcements in critical areas such as corners and large headers, and OSB
(oriented strand board). Steel is approximately half the cost of lumber for
any particular application and is likely to be made from recycled products.
It takes longer to work with, to cut and to screw together but is
astronomically stronger.
There is virtually no dimensional lumber involved in the structure
whatsoever.
As the steel framing structure is assembled, all desired lathing attachment
points at the base and tops of walls as well as corners and next to doors
and windows are there, there is no need for installing additional material
or deadwood for lathing. Bullpanel is used for lathing so the bales can be
placed either flat or on edge as they are held firmly in place by the rigid
lathing. (there is no pinning or any other form of joining the bales at all)
It is in fact preferable to place them on edge so that the bullpanel lathing
can be pigtailed to the bale wire, (wire rather than string on the bales is
also preferable)
Bullpanel lathing provides a very straight wall which undulates only
slightly and is easy to install cabinetry on with a minimum of scribing.
Bullpanels are four by twenty foot panels of 3/16" galv. wire welded on 4"
centers. They are available at any farm and ranch store. In the stucco they
are like a 4" OC grid of rebar.

We used the best self tapping screws we could get.

What we did is this:

1.Ramset 20 gauge 2"X4" galv. angle to the slab along chalklines to define
both out and inside of walls.
We put a large bead of tar underneath as an insect barrior. Be sure to leave
door passes.

2. Build I columns of wall width OSB with four pieces of 20g. angle, two
running up each side to make an I-beam looking structure for columns that
will be buried in walls. For columns next to doors or windows do the same
except only on one side of OSB.

3. Install and brace columns on each side of door and large window sites.
Small windows only need one column. We also installed I columns with the
angle screwed to both sides wherever we had unbroken bale runs longer than
twelve feet.

4. Install 18 gauge 2X4 metal stud material as top plate on both in and
outside of columns. Brace.

5. Window bucks and headers are made basically the same as the columns but
leave tabs extending past the corners on the steel angle so that you can
screw the corners together and so that you can attatch the bucks and headers
to the columns. Use 18 gauge material for headers and install 2X3 red iron
angle underneath the light gauge angle in any headers that are longer than
36".

6. Install 6X6 angle with red iron reinforcing on the inside and out side of
all exterior corners.

7. Install vertical metal stud track for attachment point for all interior
walls.

8. Screw expanded metal lathe to all flat metal surfaces on columns and
bucks.

9. Make sure everything is plumb and level and brace accordingly.

10. Install bullpanel lathing to entire exterior of structure using homemade
very light gauge metal clips folded over wire and screwed to structure. Cut
out doors and windows using bolt cutters.

11. You can now stack bales against the exterior lathing. You have created
pockets with the base plate angles, the columns, the headers and bucks. The
structure holds the bales in place.

12. Install interior bull panel lathing and cut out doors and windows.
(screw all blocking for cabentry etc to inside of bullpanel before it goes
up)

13. Install all electrical boxes and conduit on bale walls, tied to
bullpanel with pigtails. Poke conduit well out of top inside of walls for
access and to keep mud out. Put a square of foam in every box to keep mud
out.

(We have no plumbing in our balewalls, we brought any plumbing on exterior
walls in through the foundation underneath the cabinetry. The vents are all
in interior walls)


14. Pour bond beam.

15. Create any chases through bale walls for airconditioning lines etc using
4" PVC.

16. Drive copper ground rods into the ground three or more places around the
house and ground the structure to them using standard grounding wire. This
will eliminate stray currents.

17. Stucco walls. (If you are planning on using the foundation as the finish
floor, staining it, then be sure to cover it with a half inch or so of sand
before you stucco.)

18. We framed our roof using 18 gauge metal stud and made trusses just like
wooden trusse, installed on 2' centers. A metal product called hat-channel
(also 2' OC) is used as stringers for the r-panel roof.
It took a very long time and is way over-built. I am proud of it though.
People go up in the attic and their jaws drop. If I were to do it again, I
would explore using large steel purlin beams like they build large metal
buildings and barns with. It would be plenty strong enough and much quicker.

Basically, thats it.
I am happy to field any questions.

Mike Rubey





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