[Strawbale] Lime Plaster, The Magic Numbers

[Alan Mason]

Dear Debbie & All,

Just to add my two cents a bit late in the game, I would add at 33% or more
to the amount of materials you need, based on our current experience of
plastering (well, sadly, stuccoing) a strawbale.

If you are going to do the traditional scratch, brown, finish coat procedure
as is done with stucco, you will probably use at least double the amount of
materials you expect to on the first scratch coat, especially if you have
not spend many hours filling the many voids between bales, around posts,
etc. Even if you do this, those bales will still soak up about twice the
amount of materials you would use on a traditional lathed OSB/Plywood house
due to the many thousands (millions?) of voids between the straws in the
bales.

Sorry to say, I can't be more specific, as we were not able to do the
scratch on all the house before proceeding to other phases, but had to do
scratch/browncolor on some parts so other trades could do their work.
Hopefully we will be able to proceed in a more orderly manner on the next
house and I will have more accurate data to share with y'all then.

@

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Athena & Bill Steen" <absteen at dakotacom.net>
To: "Debbie Johnson-Jackson" <strawfly207 at gmail.com>
Cc: <strawbale at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2007 7:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Strawbale] Lime Plaster, The Magic Numbers


> I guess the one thing that I would add is that once you've made your
> best calculations add another chunk for the straw bale walls.  A lot
> will depend upon the character of your walls, but for sure, it will
> take you more than you think. For starters, 15% over the top wouldn't
> be bad for a starting point.
>
> Bill
> On Sep 14, 2007, at 6:58 PM, Debbie Johnson-Jackson wrote:
>
> > Thanks Rob,
> >
> > It is oh so obvious how to calculate it when shown so well. The only
> > tricky part was getting the volume of the Lime,
> > which is of course not written on the bag. In the end I just measured
> > the outside dimensions of the bag and used
> > that as a ruff number (1.4 cu. ft). I checked this measuring method
> > by measuring a bag of sand and cement that
> > I knew the volumes of and the measured values came out very close to
> > the actual values.
> > Anyway, thank you for your help it is clear that a truck load of sand
> > is indeed in order!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Debbie
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Strawbale mailing list
> > Strawbale at listserv.repp.org
> > http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/strawbale_listserv.repp.org
>
> Athena & Bill Steen
> The Canelo Project
> HC1 Box 324
> Canelo/Elgin, AZ 85611
> absteen at dakotacom.net
> www.caneloproject.com
>
>
>
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