Cob: The lifespan of straw

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Sat, 26 Aug 2000, Mike Wye wrote:

[snip]
> you thought might be 70-100 years old. This story may refer to Fawn Lake
> Ranch, Nebraska which is cited in The Straw Bale House. The house was built
> in the early 1900's and an extension in the 1950's required the building to
> be opened up and the story was that horses reached over a fence and ate some
> of the 50 year old bales that had been set aside.
> The story doesn't add what happened to the horses.

Yes/No/Maybe :-)  though I have read "The Straw Bale House" my 
recollection is that the case I was citing was from an email from someone
who was present and specifically stated that the livestock suffered no ill
effect.  The problem is that I not only was on the Strawbale list for
several years (which is frankly where this discussion belongs - anyone who
is interested should visit www.crest.org to find the strawbale list and
learn all about strawbale), but I am at least marginally aquainted with
three of the four authors of "The Strawbale House", and we have quite a
few mutual friends.  Add that to the fact that my memory is clogged with
entirely to much junk from a variety of other sources, and it is anyone's
guess where I actually got it from :-)

> In England there is a long history of using straw and reed for roofs but
> building walls of cob/stone/brick.
> There seems limited evidence of any straw bale building despite the
> existence of the raw materials and this must reflect our damp climate. Here

This may simply be a reflection of the fact that you already had other
building materials available that had done fine for many centuries.  The
straw "bale" is (relatively speaking) a recent invention, requiring
machinery to create it.  In the areas of this country where bale houses
were built 70 - 100 years ago, there were not alot of building materials
available locally, so there was more incentive to try something new using
one of the few materials that was readily available.

> in the UK there seems a lot of confusion as to the requirements of external
> renders and plasters for straw bale structures- should they breathe or
> prevent water penetrating the straw, what paints are compatible etc.
> I've also noted the promotion of many materials such as cement renders,
> concrete foundations, plastics which go against the grain of trying to use
> natural materials.

Based on what I have seen, heard, and experienced, unless you encase
each individual bale in latex/plastic/whatever, if it doesn't breathe,
it will rot (for a variety of reasons that have been discussed to death on
the straw bale list mentioned above).

Now we should probably move back to some topic that is more cob-ish.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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