[Strawbale] Strawbale position

[Andrew Morrison]

Hello Jure. There are some studies out there about the insulation value of
straw bales stacked horizontally (on the flat) and vertically (on edge);
however, I do not think that any of them are terribly accurate. In each,
there are details that are subjective. I do believe that they all conclude
that the straw orientation does indeed affect the insulation value of the
bales, thus making bales stacked on edge higher R-value per inch than bales
stacked horizontally. This effectively gives you the same R-value for the
bales stacked either way, simply allowing you to use less space in your home
for the actual wall thickness. That said, many new baling machines are
orienting the straw differently, or not at all (chopped straw from combines
for example is so small that the straw orientation is every which way).

Even though the R-value is higher per inch in a bale stacked on edge, I
don't believe it is worth the effort of stacking walls this way. There are
so many disadvantages to stacking bales on edge and I strongly recommend you
don't bother with the idea. I have written a "top ten" list of reasons not
to build with bales on edge on my website, www.StrawBale.com. You can view
that article here <http://www.strawbale.com/top-10-no-bales-on-edge> (
http://www.strawbale.com/top-10-no-bales-on-edge) for more details as to why
to avoid stacking on edge.

Best of luck and I hope your project runs smoothly from design to
completion.

Andrew

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 3:57 AM, Sport Hotel, Jure Pozar <
jure.pozar at gmail...> wrote:

>  Dear all,
>
> I am in the phase of designing our straw bale house and I have heard that
> if you lay the straw bale  horizontaly it has the same isolation
> conductivity as if laid vertical. Lets presume the bales´ dimension is 45 x
> 35 x 100 cm which would mean that laid horizontaly the strawbale wall would
> be 45 cm and verticaly would be 35 cm (the isolation at this second option
> is supposed to be better due to straws which are in vertical position). Does
> anybody know of tests performed and published of this particulat subject. If
> this is true you need much less strawbales to built your house. I am of
> course talking about post & beam method. Probably this would present a
> problem at loadbearing method. Does anybody know of any difficulties when
> building post & beam and bales put vertical?
>
> I would appreciate any answer
>
> Regards,
>
> Jure Požar
>
>
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Andrew Morrison
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