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Dropping The Roof
The first part of this video shows me trying to get the walls straight and stuffing straw in the gaps between the bales. The second part shows me removing the supports for the roof so that it sits on the bales.
I wasn’t quite sure how to drop the roof. It felt like taking off the supports that held it out would be a very dangerous and risky thing to do with a good chance of disaster.
However the straw was so tightly packed beneath the roof plate that when I took of the supports it hardly dropped at all initially and then gradually sunk down but only really by a couple of centimeters.
All of that is to say that these videos are very dull in the end!
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Building The Walls
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Dressing a bale
Here’s a short video about how to prepare (or dress) a bale ready to be used in a straw bale building:
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Getting the bales
This was a good day
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Bale Compression Test
The gap between the floor and the roof is slightly too small for 6 bales. This is deliberate, so that it won’t be necessary to drop the roof onto the bales – the roof should already be sitting on the bales when I remove the supports.
I wanted to be sure I could compress the bales enough so that they would fit in the gap, so I did a test:
It worked!
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Making The Wall Plate
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Boarding The Roof Plate
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January 2023 Update
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The Roof Membrane
One day it was very windy and all the tarps blew off the roof. Instead of trying to put them back on I decided it was time to put the roof membrane on to make things properly waterproof.
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Finishing The Roof Boards
The bottom of the roof was finished with a mixture of the OSB offcuts and pallets. This section doesn’t need to be wind/air tight as it’s an overhang, so it’s not over the livable area of the building.
I began this work once I received planning permission at the end of November 2022.
I also covered the roof with tarps during this period to try to minise the wear on the OSB. The roof OSB wasn’t SmartPly (though I was told it was) and it degrated in the weather much more quickly than SmartPly, so I wouldn’t get it again. I think it was Kronospan.
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The Strawdio 