Re: [Strawbale] prefab strawbale (MR)...now BBB

[Max Vittrup Jensen <max@permalot...>]

Dear all,

Great to hear your input Mark, and thank you for the links.

Michel, thank you for your lead to promote the little bit of scientific 
research I was part of making! :o)
Here http://permalot.org/files/u2/BBB1228Final.pdf , you'll find a 7. 
semester university paper with a Life cycle screening (Light weight 
LCA), comparing 2 identical passive houses; one made of lime-sand panels 
and styrofoam, the other made of big bales. There's also a complete 
breakdown of costs in the attached excel sheet, which shows that the BBB 
house cost 60% of the price of the other passive house. The central 
outcome of the report is that it shows how the BBB indeed is 
Co2-positive, and how bizarre the German concept of 'passive house' is, 
as it typically uses more energy in the fabrication and destruction 
process, compared to what it can save in a 50 year life-cycle...

Apart from that study, the only other one I'm aware off is a recent one 
paid by FASBA; a compression test of big bales. It's on the new poster 
series from FASBA covering their research the past many years (which 
I'll recommend you all to invest in). Unfortunately it seem that the big 
bale they used were not ideal in size and compression....and they're 
apparently not going going for the EU wide certification which I wish 
for...
...Oh, Werner Smidth also had a compression test done on big bales, 
however stacked flat (his prefered approach), and not on edge as the 
German test, and the way to save on property taxes, as the walls will be 
'only' about 75 cm thick with plaster; and 2 bales fit fine for height.

And for anyone interested in discussin more about BBB, I'll recommend 
that we use the group for this at 
http://eusbba.ning.com/group/bbbbigbalebuilding
Cheers,
Max
PermaLot Centre of Natural Building
www.permalot.org