[Cob] hybrid bales bags

[Scott Van Kirk]

You will definitely want to precompress your bales.  This strengthens your 
walls, stiffens them and makes them easier to plaster. Straw bales are very 
strong and perfectly capable of bearing the load of the roof when designed 
correctly.  The strength of bales is well documented.  You should look at 
"The Last Straw" journal.  They have a lot of good articles about this.  As 
far as getting the load to distribute evenly between the cob and the 
strawbales,I'm not sure about this.  It seems to me, that you would want to 
build the straw a little higher than the cob, compress it to the same 
height as the cob and then plaster the straw.  As I understand it,the 
plaster then becomes the loadbearing point of the walls and the bales will 
not compress further. If you go this route, definitely get someone with 
some experience to help you out.


-Scott

On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 19:28:38 -0800, Jilly <JILLPRUETT at peoplepc.com> wrote:

> Oh I DO have the book, The Hand-Sculpted House. That is where I first was 
> given the impression to use straw-bale or hybrid system. I understand how 
> to use straw bales for a small area. But to create the entire north wall 
> or large span, I was not sure. Also, was not sure if it was superior to 
> earth bags. If I make the north wall all straw bale, load bearing (is 
> that really safe?) won't it compress when I add the roof? So how much 
> higher should the top of the bales be in compared to the cob? 
> Precompresed bales?
>
> Also I was questioning using all straw bales, then covering with earthen 
> plaster / cob.. or earthen bags and doing the same. Wondering about 
> strength, ease of building, insulation, cost, time in building, ect.
>
> jilly
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-- 
-Scott