[Strawbale] Overhead bales

[David Neeley]

No "hay as food" from me, as I understand the difference between hay and
straw.

Generally, bales as ceiling/roof insulation would be a rather bad idea. No
matter how hard you try, at some point a roof *will* tend to leak--turning
the bales to a rather fetid mush fairly quickly. In addition, the bales are
far too heavy to be easily supported in that use without using much stronger
material than you really should need to.

I also am *not* a fan of fiberglass. In that application, I would probably
use blown-in cellulose--which has a higher R value than fiberglass, is cheap
and fairly easy to do. With some kind of plywood, OSB, or the like affixed
to the bottoms of the beams, it should be more than adequate to support the
cellulose.

For those who don't know, cellulose insulation is generally recycled
newsprint or other paper treated with borate to resist fire and insects. It
is 100% recycled content, and is extremely effective and inexpensive
insulation.

David

On 3/30/07, Stone Tool <owly at ttc-cmc.net> wrote:
>
> .
>
>         My thought is that strawbales could easily be placed between the
> joists
> or perlins or whatever you want to call them.   I have been thinking
> about putting fiberglass bat with foil backing above the bales & below
> the metal roof.   The bottom side would probably be plastered.