[Strawbale] Strawbale building in north Yorkshire

[Barbara Jones]

Dear All
Thankyou for being so patient with this project. It has certainly been very
difficult for me, not knowing when, or if, it was going to start but I am
pleased to announce that we now have some definite dates to tell you. The
delay has been caused by problems in securing insurance, which have now been
sorted out, but which unfortunately mean that no-one under the age of 18 can
work with us this time. I am disappointed about that, but none of this is
within my control.
The second problem has been caused by the Building Regs dept. who have all
along been encouraging of us using car tyres for foundations, but in
practice have proved to be very wary of this idea, making us carry out
different tests on site and generally delaying everything for 2 months. Also
we have been forced to change the type of fill in order to get approval.
However, it is still important for the concept of low impact building that a
version of car tyre foundations has been officially approved, and I shall
continue to argue for simpler methods.

So the schedule is:
26th August to 13th September:  Filling and placing car tyre foundation
using
dolomite hardcore (not rammed earth).

13th September to 20th September: No Volunteers on site due to the
construction of a temporary roof over the building.

23rd - 27th September Finishing tyres and timber floor grid and
positioning it on tyres.

30th September to 18th October: Building the straw walls.This may continue
longer if we have fewer volunteers than anticipated.