[Strawbale] Fire tests 2011 - valid for the whole EU

[Jan Hollan]

A successful Czech (hence, EU) test of fire resistance of a plastered 
strawbale wall has been done in June. Now the official protocols are 
available, too.

As Jan Růžička announced on the ESBG in Bouzov already, a specimen of a 
loadbearing strawbale wall, a 3 m square 0.58 m thick has been subjected 
to a standard fire test in June 2011. The inner (heated) side has been 
earth-plastered (5 cm), the outer side had a lime plaster (3 cm). Bales 
had 77 kg/m3 originally and 93 kg/m3 when fixed in the specimen.  During 
the test, the load on the specimen had been 12 kN/m (so, like 360 kg on 
the whole specimen). The wall had endured for 144 min, test was stopped 
then due to the vertical deformation exceeding the allowed limit (this 
happend shortly after a large part of the earth plaster fell down).

Another pair of specimens has been tested as well, one of them using 
strawbales as insulation (41 cm thick) in a wooden construction, earth 
plastered, loaded by 20 kN/m. This test had to be finished after 69 min 
due to a failure of the other specimen; the strawbale-filled one remained 
almost intact. So it had been declared to comply with requirements for at 
least 60 min.

For a longer text on the issue, with some images and
with all needed URLs, including those to the protocols, see
  http://amper.ped.muni.cz/jenik/straw/tests/FiretestStrawCZ.pdf

So, walls of such constructions, if not subject to larger loads than the 
tested ones, can be used in EU without any fire-related legal obstacles 
now!

with best regards,
  Jenik