[Strawbale] 3-string bales...

[Denise Ohio]

>
>As for the engineering reasons for using hard-to-come-by 3-string bales as
>opposed to more readily available 2-string bales, I'd be interested in
>hearing the reasons. No doubt there may be some but nothing that can't be
>easily circumvented.

Found our bales, thanks.

Habib requested we use 3-string bales as he prefers working with them. Our 
engineer did the engineering of the structure using the 3-string bales. We 
got our permit based on that engineering.

Our choice was to ask our engineer to okay the change in bale size, then go 
back to the permitting authorities for their approval, or ask for help 
finding a close source of bales. I thought I'd try finding the bales first 
as it was the easier of the two options.

Many farmers here make 3-string bales. Usually they're not that difficult 
to find---even our local feed store will have some. But not this spring. I 
arranged with Lou last fall for our bales in July, but since our scheduled 
change, I had to scramble to find bales. I bet if I'd reserved bales for 
May, I would've had them and wouldn't have had to ask the list for a 
recommended source. But as I've said, until last week, I thought our walls 
were going up in July.

Jacek Zagorski (thanks, Jacek) recommended a farmer in Oregon who has 
plenty of 3-string bales that are weed-free, dry, and tight, and waiting to 
be put to use. He usually sells to the state of California for erosion 
control, but since they're having a drought, he hasn't sold many. he has to 
come up to Seattle on May 10, anyway, and that's 40 miles from us.

I also got an email from Jerry Uhland down in California that his company 
just got financing to manufacture straw fiberboard. So I learned something 
as well.

ohio