Part 6 Getting the straw!

Part 6 Getting the straw!

unloading the straw bales into a temp pile and cover

We chose to make the walls with straw. I worked on a two story, 2000 sdqft straw bale project and I knew what I liked and didn't about straw. Our structure is single story and so the straw bales can support the full weight of the roof without and additional framing easily.
We checked around and got the number to a guy up north who delivered straw bales. He just happened to have a trailer full of bales, way more than we needed but the whole load was $370! We also use straw for other purposes and to be up to date we still have some left over 5 years later! Our time with the straw was going to go into winter so we we needed to be able to store it. We set six pallets on the ground, covered them with plywood (recycled of course) and tarped the whole thing.
Our straw was oat straw and due to the short hot summer, the straw was stunted and the strands were short and filled with oats. Longer strands make stronger bales plus the mice had a hay day! Get it! But we made it work anyway! Building this way is very forgiving!

You can see the covered Bale pile hiding
behind the tree!

It is important to keep the straw dry. It can get wet a little but it will mold and mildew if it gets too wet and besides the fact it can start to compost and ignite if its left to get to wet deep inside. That's the theory anyway and we don't need any combusting moldy straw so we stacked it like a little house and put more used plywood to help make the pitch as seen in the background.

Now onto the fun part finally. Everything up to this point looked and seemed like we were moving at a snails pace. Our goal now is to get the straw bale walls up and get it protected before rain or winter! We are about mid summer at this point and we know that we have limited time. In Sandpoint Idaho the building season is very short, winter is very long we have about two months left before the rain comes! Yikes

The fun part of this project are the curved walls! We even have an S shape and so we were going to learn to bend bales. First we bought a whole roll of bailing twine and which is a bargain in my opinion! Its super strong and there is so much of it you can use it liberally Over the surface of the foundation we put down some tar paper to make a barrier between the rock wall and the straw. That should help with potential moisture issues that may arise from temperature changes and such.

First row of bales with the ties beneath

 It is difficult to see in this picture but we took Bailing twine and made doubled up loops that lay over the foundation and under the bales. We placed them every 24 inches or so apart depending on the lay of the bales.  After we stacked the walls we used these loops that lay on both sides to cinch the bales down to compress them and to help stitch the whole project together. You will see them again!

So the fun part begins and we get to stack the walls. The re bar sticking out of the foundation hold the bales in place and by the second course we took 4 ft re bar and again pounded it in. The re bar essentially ties three layers together. Its like legos and big nails.

Finally building something!

I think It would be nice to just share some photos. We used our little garden cart that we got for FREE at the dump to transport 2 or even 3 bales at a time. Lugging bales gets heavy!
This is a fun time for involvement. Everybody likes this part because it goes quickly and you get to see your progress daily. Its over quickly as well but then you have a basics of the walls!

Stacking bales in our only corner.
The corner was necessary for a bunk bed in the future!

Here is a simple scaffold. We didn't even
build it. It was built and Freee at the dump!

The most difficult and time consuming part of the straw was making the curves. We attached each bale with bailing twine on the ends and we made a giant sewing needle about 30 inches long by bending a loop on one end and grinding a point on the other. Often you have to shorten a bale and a needle is necessary to make it happen. I don't have any pictures of that process unfortunately and our description of the process is more of a general description. I'm going to move on to part 7 Where we get more into wall construction. I like to share pictures and nobody wants to read an epic Blog post! Part 7 will be Building Straw walls!
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Free ride!

Jessica & Shalom taking a break!