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Hello all,
I know of several buildings using large 200-250kg
straw bales. Locations where cost per square foot/meter of land is incredibly
low, they may be useful in that they are a very common format for bulk
handling fibre but they are also over engineered and not without there
problems.
Here is a link to Huff and Puff, the Australian
SB organisation and their offer as one example.
All the normal conditions are required in the
specification of these bales, bulk density, moisture, mould, weed seeds, foreign
matter etc and if this is done then the raw material is viable.
For specific buildings (where land is cheap) that
require hyper-insulation to control the internal climate (frozen food or chill
storage, wine store, recording studio, sports halls) then jumbo
bales may potentially have a place.
In high rainfall/humidity areas procuring jumbo
bales dry <18% free moisture, keeping them dry throughout the supply chain is
an absolute must to quality control the build against all the normal risks.
Common sense stuff really! Being professional and being able to giving gurantees
that are certificated by an independent agency depends on this and is the route
we are taking.
Here is a refurbished livestock barn, rezoned for
office accomodation that uses big bales, it was designed by White Design,
creators of the Modcell concept.
The sound insulation quality of this build is
exceptional but as the building was a steel frame the thermal bridging issues
need professional building design and materials, as this was a project for the
farmer client in this case was they were more than receptive to the
use of jumbo bales (they have them on farm and the kit to handle them) and the
planners required them to keep the livestock building too so they were looking
for a low cost solution!
I would be very interested in knowing
of anyone who is interested or whom would be interested in working on
developing a pan-european or even global specification for construction grade
fibre as a hybrid open source project.
Regards,
Mark
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