[Strawbale] concrete footings

[namadgi]

... and in france a lot of sb builders also use brick foundations (often the
large 15x20x50cm "honeycombed" bricks) with a lime mortar which provide an
excellent base with good environmental credentials.

i can also vouch for paul sheraton's comments about lime concrete: while the
structural strength does not reach that of a cement concrete it is more than
sufficient for a house and certainly for something as small as you are
planning. for foundations and slab it is important however to use hydraulic
lime (nhl 3,5 or 5) and not the more pure calcium lime (perfect for
plasters). lime also takes much longer to dry completely than cement so this
would need to be taken into account in the timeline planning.

a lime/hemp slab (very common in france) while being a wonderful insulating
base, needs however to be prepared with caution. a well ventilated thick
rubble bed is absolutely necessary in order to avoid any problems of
humidity. this may not be suitable for you since rubble sourcing appears a
problem.

good luck!

stephen
val du loir, france


----- Original Message -----
From: "Carine Simons" <carina.simons at gmx...>
To: "'European strawbale building discussions'"
<strawbale at amper....muni.cz>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 3:00 PM
Subject: AW: [Strawbale] concrete footings


Hallo from Germany,


For years and years people in Holland and Germany have been using brick
foundations and bigger buildings have been standing for centuries. Just a
suggestion!

Carina Simons

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: strawbale-bounces at amper....muni.cz
[mailto:strawbale-bounces at amper....muni.cz] Im Auftrag von Mark
Bigland-Pritchard
Gesendet: Montag, 13. Februar 2006 08:13
An: SB (Europe); SB (repp); SB (yahoo); SB (bale-on)
Betreff: [Strawbale] concrete footings


Hi folks.

I'm organising the building of a small (30 m2) sb structure this spring,
on an environmentally sensitive site.  We need to minimise the amount of
concrete going into the ground (to minimise embodied energy, to minimise
local ecological impact through changed soil chemistry, and to minimise
transportation costs).  So I've ruled out a concrete pad.  A rubble
trench foundation is ruled out because there is no suitable rubble
locally.  I'm therefore looking at some sort of pile foundation.
Treated timber below ground level wouldn't meet the ecological criteria
set by the site managers, and I don't want to take the risk with
untreated timber; my previous experience of using boulders is that it's
not the best way to do this because the timbers on top of them have to
be individually shaped to fit (time-consuming, and not suitable for the
mostly unskilled volunteer labour which we will have).  So I'm looking
at using concrete piles, probably arranged in something like a 2m grid,
to support the building.

My question is this: does anyone have experience they are willing to
share of using proprietary systems for shaping the concrete such as that
at www.bigfootsystems.com ?  (Bigfoot make a bell-shaped footing out of
recycled plastic, into which the concrete may be poured.)

My second, more tenative question is:  can this sort of system be used
with rammed earth instead of concrete?  (I don't think I have the time
to learn everything I'd need to know to do this this time round, but it
would be good to know what's possible for future work.)

atb,
Mark
Borden, SK, Canada

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____________________________________________________
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Send all messages to:
Strawbale at amper....muni.cz

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