[strawbale] new email address

[Strawbalebuild@aol...]

Hi There Strawbalebuilders,

I have recently changed my email address from john.burrows@euphony... to the 
above and so I have been a bit out of touch with what has been happening in 
the group and am looking forward to hearing from you again.

I had the pleasure of meeting with many of the members of the group at the 
2000 gathering at Redferns and was very impressed with what I learned. Having 
been involved with the building industry in the UK for many years is was 
quite an eye opener to see what was being achieved using alternative 
materials and methods.

My daughter and son-in-law run a 20,000 hectare farm in the Waterberg 
district of the Northern Province of South Africa about 200 kms North of 
Johannesburg and this area has recently been proclaimed as a biosphere 
reserve. 

There are two small settlements on the farm which house about 1000 people and 
where their labour force live and many of the houses are in urgent need of 
replacement so there is a great need for low cost sustainable housing.

Having recently switched from a main crop of tobacco to wheat there is an 
abundant bi-product just waiting to be put to use together with an abundance 
of naturally growing poplar, bamboo and reed together with sand clay and 
stone, all ideal for building.

At the end of January I am off to SA to start on an exciting project to 
develop a strawbale system utilising as many of these naturally occurring 
materials and without the need to buy in too much in the way of timber and 
plywood and even cement.

The ground around the area we will be building is very sandy and therefore 
flexible so it may be necessary to use a shallow concrete trench-fill 
foundation. We may also try a dwarf stone wall of 20-30cms on which to sit 
and protect the bottom layer of strawbales.

The walls will be raised in the proven loadbearing method but then comes the 
two main areas of experimentation with the installation of door and window 
frames and the load bearing ring beam on the top of the walls.

The cheapest door and window frames available in SA are made of steel and so 
have a very narrow profile, windows about 4cms and door frames under 10cms. I 
want to experiment with fitting them directly to the strawbales, without 
plywood liners, so we will have to provide support above to carry the roof 
and develop a method of pining the frames to the bales and allow enough space 
around the frames for plastering.

I had thought of making up steel U shaped staples about 20cms wide which 
could be welded to the sides of the frames and then spiked into the bales. 
The frames would be capable of carrying the weight of the roof but it may be 
necessary to use a strip of plywood inserted into the sides of the window 
opening under the top layer of bales to spread the load evenly above the 
frames.

Instead of making up the wall plate from 100x50mm timber and plywood I am 
going to experiment with making up a ladder style frame, the width of the 
bales, using poplar poles of about 60-80mm dia which can be nailed or wired 
together. The legs of the assembly would be of different lengths so that when 
laid on top of the strawbale walls the joints would overlap and could be 
braced to avoid a weak point and sagging of the roof. The gaps between the 
'rungs' could then be filled with a clay/mud mix to protect the top of the 
bales.

The roof could be built in one of two traditional methods: using sheet metal 
corrugated sheets which would require milled timber rafters to provide a 
level surface for the sheets to lay on, or alternatively my preferred method 
pitched with poplar poles of about 60-80mm dia and then thatched using 
locally grown thatching reed.

The locals will I am sure be able to provide the expertise needed to source 
the right material and provide the expertise to plaster the walls, as mud and 
clay render is a traditional method of covering the interior and exterior of 
mud block, concrete block or timber wattle framed buildings.

We will have many other problems to solve along the way as this will be the 
first time I have engaged in a strawbale project as up to now it has all been 
theory and now it time to put it into practice and I have got just 6 weeks to 
perfect it.

If we can overcome all the problems on this first run then I am hoping to set 
up regular workshops with the local people to teach them the method as there 
is a dire need for all sorts of building methods to fill the desperate 
housing needs of millions of South Africans with low cost eco-freindly 
housing. Who knows some of you might like to join me at some time in the 
future.

If any of you have any advise, comments, ideas or information that might be 
useful I would be pleased to hear from you.

In the meantime I wish you all a Very Happy and Successful Strawbuilding NEW 
YEAR.

Best wishes
John Burrows.