[Strawbale] Strawbales in conventional home

[Dr C Colegrave]

Cassandra Lasdin wrote:
> I have some extra strawbales from a wall project and I would like to 
> install them into a conventional home but I cannot find information on 
> the web about this...
> Does anyone have experience stacking strawbales for interior walls in 
> a conventional home on top of a wood floor...and then earth/lime 
> plastering them?

Cassandra
Paul Lacinski and Michael Bergeron in there book Serious Straw Bale present
several cases for using straw bales as interior no-load Bering partition
walls. The draw backs are of course the "foot print" they take up if one
uses the conventional laid flat orientation. They comment that with a
traditional earthen/lime render weight on a conventional frame should not be
an issue. The sound proofing quality's of these walls are very superior to
most partition wall systems and of course IMO there beauty unmatched.
Another system is using a "one string" bale. A conventional bale is cut
between the strings and stacked on end between the conventional stick
framing. The resulting wall is then plastered yielding an aprox 11-12 inch
thick wall. They do note there is an aprox 20 wastage from "bale explosion".
The one string bales require some obvious special care in handling :).
Kindest Regards
Craig Colegrave
Alberta Canada