KSTP News Feature
Family Handyman Magazine Feature
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This week the main construction crew helped finish baling the south and east walls. The gable end was particularly tough, with more metal work needing done, per the engineer specs. Working high up on scaffolds is slow going, but we made real progress. Issues we encountered this week:
Overall, we have just a bit more meshing on the east gable and then the construction crew will move to the west the week of Oct. 25th. We anticipate getting all of the baling and meshing done on the house by the end of the week. Given the election on Nov. 2nd, we'll likely be unable to coordinate volunteers until after that. We've been monitoring the long-term forecast, and there is a glimmer of hope that the temps will be above freezing the weekend of Nov. 6. If that holds, we'll coordinate a crew for plastering. Everyone on our volunteer list can anticipate an email from us ~Nov. 3 whether or not that is going forward. We got the first floor effectively baled and meshed and we moved on to the second floor. The north wall was quite a challenge, especially in putting in the top row of bales and compressing them down. We had to be creative a use car jacks to do so. With the north wall baled (minus the corners...we need scaffolding on the east and west for that), we've moved to the south wall to get the bales in before the roofers come back and put on the sleepers (think long eaves). Putting in the top row without roof sleepers is much easier. We worked our way around the house from the south to the east, north, then west. Each time we baled, tamped, weed wacked, meshed, and sewed. On the west wall, an awesome team of women finished the weed wacking, meshing, and sewing and got a fun team pic. What a first couple of days! After the excitement of getting the bales to site, it has been a whirlwind of learning and re-learning to get our first wall installed. We are learning that many of our bales are a bit soft and/or the strings aren't quite centered, so we have spent a lot of time retying the bales. This is very time consuming and can be frustrating, but it definitely gives us plenty of opportunity to learn the knots that we need to know for resizing bales, as needed. Our straw bale expert, Andrew Morrison, spent the better part of Monday morning teaching us his special straw bale knot and tying process, which includes tossing your body weight on top of the bale to kind of hump them tighter. It is amazing how much of a difference this makes from a starting bale to a tightened, retied bale. Once bales are retied, we notch them as needed to fit around our existing beams, and stacking them in a running bond (similar to tile or brick) to provide strength. When we have a full wall in place, we use tampers to get the bales positioned correctly so that they aren't sticking out on either side. We then use weed whips (or whatever similar term you want to use) to get them flush with our beams and framing. Tomorrow, we will be attaching felt and mesh to prepare for future plastering. The first wall on the first floor is now ready for this next step! If we ever build a straw bale house again (who knows!), we will definitely be pickier with our bales and check the strings a bit closer. We should be able to make these work, but it is going to take us quite a bit longer. With that in mind: we have already added an extra week to our build to cover the extra time that we will need, given what we have learned in these first few days. So if you are interested, please come join us and help! It has been great to meet and work with so many different people who want to learn about straw bale construction. Luckily, many of them have been able to work a couple of shifts. Everyone is welcome for as much or as little time as they have, but training takes a lot of time, so it is great if folks can come back for at least a second shift. This work is tiring and it is definitely time for me to sleep. We hope you can come join us, though! Bales have arrived!!! It was a bit of a scramble, but we have great friends and volunteers who rolled with the adjustments.
Our hauler canceled Friday morning while Katie was already on her way to the farm in Frederic, Wisconsin. After a few “animated” calls, she parked the pickup truck er borrowed and ended up renting a 24’ U-haul and getting to the farm to haul herself. Luckily, the hauling company felt bad and found two other drivers in smaller trucks, so we had three batches of bales. Good news was our official moisture test from Braun Intertec passed with flying colors! 18% is the general threshold to avoid mold issues. All of our bales have been stored in a barn for a few months, so this wasn’t a huge risk, but they can back between 9-12%, which is great! Added bonus: drier bales are also lighter, which came in handy when throwing them up to the second floor. Each bale weighed between 35-45 pounds, so it was quite the workout! Also, 650 is a lot of bales! And they shed a bit. Luckily, Katie built in some spoilage, so we should be good. We swept up the shed straw and put it back in the uhaul, which I had to late night deliver back to Wisconsin so we could grab the pickup truck and get our other tools from the @minnesotatoollibrary yesterday. Did you know that we have a couple of tool library locations where you can check out tools? Everything from weed whips to chainsaws, cement mixers, tool belts, wheelbarrows, etc. They are awesome and you should check it out! Big shout out to @brinkwatts @sunnyrae214 @brian.christopher.thompson @bexswanson @jonocowgill @dreamofthe90sinstpaul @morganbird @james.k.bohn @wedgelive and a couple others not on IG for helping us get this project off on the right foot! Bales are now stacked, with about ⅔ in the house and ⅓ on pallets and covered in tarps in the driveway. We will moisture test them again on Monday morning to be safe, but we should be good to go! There is still time to join us for our build! We have volunteer opportunities all week for you to try your hand at straw bale construction with plenty of guidance. Sign up to join us. #UptownStrawhouse #Straw |
AuthorKatie Jones and Peter Schmitt chronicle their building adventure. Archives
January 2024
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