Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
that hairy straw sticking out. This reduces
surface area so that you use far less plaster
than you would otherwise; it also reduces
the risk of flame spread across the surface
of the wall while the building is more
vulnerable before plastering. Good tools
to use for trimming are a garden strimmer,
sharp hedge cutters or clippers, a chainsaw
(be careful!) or a crocodile saw. The corners
and around windows are usually the only
places where strings are exposed, so
take extra care here not to break them.
(Although, as with everything in strawbale
building, there's always a way round it -
just carefully tie string extensions to each
end and then retie the string.)
It's amazing
how transformed the building looks once
you've given it a really good haircut!
them like large Rawlplugs. Cut a length of
hazel, about 200mm (8“) long and 25-32mm
(1-1¼”) in diameter, and hammer it into the
face of the bale at the point where you want
to fix something.
Strengthening up round windows
and doors
Pay good attention to the shapes you've
created around doors and windows. If you
had good tight bales then you should be
able to shape these with your tools and also
provide a sound surface on which to put
your first coat of plaster. If not, you'll need
to add something to the bales in order to
make a good key for the plaster. One way to
do this is to make a mix of long straw and
lime- (or clay)-rich plaster, and starting at
the bottom of the opening work your way
up the window or door reveals, building out
the edge until you have the required shape.
You'll have to leave this a day or so until it
becomes hard enough to apply your second
coat of plaster. Another option is to use
vertical reed matting, fastened tightly into
the straw by sewing through from the inside
to the outside, or pinning into the straw
using barbed hazel pins. You can then apply
your first coat of plaster on to the matting.
Variations of these two methods can be
used above windows and doors, around
alcoves and niches, and so on.
Alcoves, niches and truth
windows
Add in alcoves and niches at this point. You
might want to have a nice little alcove to
hold your toilet roll, for instance, or an inset
shelf in the study. And most straw buildings
have a truth window somewhere (a picture
somewhere on the wall that's hinged
instead of hung, so that when you open it
you can see the straw behind), because
once they're finished you can't really tell
they're made of straw.
Fixing points for cabinets, shelves, etc.
Settlement and compression
Think about where you want your kitchen
cabinets, light switches, radiators, etc. In
all these places you need to add fixing
points to the straw before plastering. Short
pieces of hazel are ideal for this job: use
Ideally we would choose the densest bales
to build with, in order to reduce the amount
of settlement that occurs due to the loading
of other bales, floors and roof. Construction-
