Loose Ends

Because this is our only real experience working with straw bale walls, I’m only guessing when I say most of those walls meet at corners. Hence, we wouldn’t typically see the ends of any bales in an interior wall. We would usually see them at the exterior corners of the house where those ends could be easily covered with plaster.

Our house, with its “T” shape has four places where the end of a bale wall can be seen inside the house. These also happen to be the places where much of the electrical wiring has been placed as can be seen in this photo.

Looking closely at the bales, there is a great deal of loosely bound straw plus large gaps between the bales. There are also several large indentations created by pressure the baling twine exerts on the bale to hold it together. In addition, there's that plastic-coated wiring to deal with. All of these things could be big problems when it's time to plaster this section of the wall. Next spring we plan to apply two inches of plaster to all of the interior walls. However, some of the gaps and indentations in these problem areas are as large as 8 inches. What to do?

On the exterior of our house, there were several sections where we used wood lath to cover gaps which we stuffed with straw. It was something of an experiment although we had read about it on-line and in our plaster book. When we plastered the lath, everything went well, so we've decided to attempt the same method on the four problem areas inside the house.

One-inch nailer on left

First Scott nailed a one-inch by one-inch nailer in front of the wiring. Our intent was to provide a surface to which we would nail one end of each piece of lath. We also needed to protect the wiring from being punctured by the nails holding the lath in place.

Working from the floor up, I nailed a few pieces of lath in place, then stuffed straw into the gaps.

Here is the entire section covered with lath.

And a close-up. It seems like this is a surface we'll be able to plaster without any trouble. We'll see the result next spring.

In The Meantime

When the temperature gets below freezing, making plaster becomes a challenge. The earth is too cold, the water freezes and it’s just plain no fun. So, now that the weather is reaching the low twenties at night and only gets into the fifties during the day, we have transitioned from outdoor to indoor work. Not only has this been a wise move, but it puts smiles on our faces to be inside the house where the solar panels are doing a nifty job of keeping the temperature at a lovely 65-plus degrees. Not only does this warm our bodies, but it warms our hearts to know that we aren’t sending our pennies to the utility company. Good old Sol has our back.

Our first indoor project was of the cosmetic nature. Last November when Tyler’s crew built our ceiling with the gorgeous beetle-killed ponderosa pine tongue and groove, it was impossible to cut the ends of each plank in such a way as to create a perfect union at the peak of the ceiling. In fact, this goal wasn’t even on the radar in as much as Scott and I had decided to cover the peak of the ceiling with some, as yet, undecided product. We talked about several possibilities, but we finally decided upon bamboo. You see, we have absolutely fallen in love with that material and are using it wherever we can. The peak of the ceiling was our first opportunity to use it as a decorative accent.

We ordered four-inch, 10-foot long, half-rounds of bamboo from the nice folks at Cali Bamboo. We applied Minwax gel stain to each pole, waited for it to dry and screwed it to the ceiling. The only real challenge was the height which we conquered with a double-decker scaffold.

Gap at peak of ceiling

Gap covered with bamboo half-round

Scott on the scaffold

 Success!

First Plaster Coat on the Exterior

This is the appearance of the exterior of our house as of September 7, 2011.

East wall

North wall

South wall

There are still many, many layers of plaster to go, both outside and in. But we love the process. And we feel like our home is literally rising up from the land. Amazing!

Interlude

Sometimes, most times actually, life gets in the way of desire. This is the only thing that can explain our lull in construction-related activity. I had to return to work at my university, and Scott had to attend to Logan business related to his new, soon-to-be-published book. Once the requisite business was taken care of, Scott returned to Torrey where he is now hard at work staining our exterior doors, installing door handles and locks and hanging said doors.

By way of explanation, rather than opting for solid hardwood doors, we purchased fiberglass doors from Therma-tru. You might ask why we would choose fiberglass doors when wood plays a starring role in our entire house. The answer? Our exterior doors are three quarter light doors. I've learned that means that glass is three quarters of the door. We wanted Serious glass in the doors because of the insulative qualities of the glass, and Therma-tru doors are the only doors in which Serious Windows will put their glass.

Therma-tru does not make a wood door, but we wanted the wood look. We also wanted all of the advertised benefits of their fiberglass doors: low maintenance; wood grain look; no rotting, deterioration or rusting; energy efficiency; no warping, bowing or twisting; security and great insulation.

I was a bit apprehensive about our decision when I saw what the unfinished doors looked like at delivery. But all of that worry evaporated when I saw the stained and installed door. Since I'm not in Torrey, I accept Scott's assurances that the doors will be beautiful. His photos give a clearer picture of the actual appearance. I'm also heartened to hear of visitors' incredulous comments: "You're kidding! That's fiberglass? They look like imported antique doors."

How lucky to have a partner who works on your shared dream when you cannot be there with him.

In this video, I think you can see how easy it is to achieve this part of our goals.

First door in place

An inside view

Close-up of door hardware

An important aside...We purchased our door hardware from Beazer Lock and Key in Logan, Utah. They were extremely helpful and knowledgeable.

The Satisfactory Solution End Note

Last Thursday, the satisfactory window solution arrived in the form of Rich Barker (our sales representative) and Dane Knudsen (the window technician Rich has worked with before.) We were a little worried about the timing of their arrival because the previous day's day hike began with blue skies and ended with rain. When we returned to Torrey that day, we learned it had rained over an inch. By the time Rich and Dane pulled up to our house, dark clouds were already building in the west.

We hoisted the first window onto sawhorses.

Nonetheless and without delay, we faced the first big hurdle, moving those big windows into position so that everything could be done at a comfortable height rather than on the ground.

Shortly after work began, the rain began to fall. Luckily, Rich and Dane were able to do some of the work under the porch.

Perhaps they imagined it would be a hot day of working in the sun, but the rain, and eventually hail, had other plans. Rich and Dane soldiered on despite the inclement weather.

The first window was completed without incident.

The second window was installed without incident.

Scott, Dane, Rich Mary, Shanna and Doug

The entire team is reflected in a window after the project is completed. Without the efforts of Rich Barker on our behalf, nobody would be smiling. He is a terrific representative for Serious Windows.

Adobe Bricks

The interior wall that abuts our Tempcast masonry heater will be built with adobe bricks which will then be plastered. The logic behind this design is that the masonry heater will heat our house and, at the same time, the adobe wall. The heat from the wall will radiate into the room on the opposite side of the wall, Scott's office.

Monday we had a family work party. The goal? To make 150 adobe bricks, 5 1/2 inches wide by 3 1/2 inches tall by 14 inches long. While Doug and Shanna manned the mortar mixer, the rest of the family went into production mode.

Wesley rinses brick forms.

Barb, Wesley and Kelli fill forms with plaster.

Kelli smooths plaster.

John uses a double form.

Wesley uses a stick screed to remove excess plaster from form.

Jessica fills buckets with clay for the mixer.

Casey keeps Missy company.

Adobe bricks lined up inside the house.

In less than half a day, we made one hundred and fifty-one bricks. Eventually they will go into our heater wall.

First Layer - Part 2

We are definitely plaster novices. That fact became very apparent when Doug stood his straight edge up against our walls. As you can see in this picture, there were gaps, some wide and others small, from the eaves to the drip edge at the bottom of each wall. This was due to the irregularity of our bales. In some places, they bulged out. In other places they swooped in.

To make the application of our last two plaster layers easier, our plaster team - Scott, Doug, Shanna, Linda and I - made a second pass around the house with our trowels, straight edges and plaster bins. That means there is lots of plaster, almost three inches in places, while some spots have a very thin layer.

Part of the charm of a strawbale house is the organic curve of the walls. We wanted to preserve that feeling, but we also didn't want the walls to look like a lumpy chocolate layer cake either. Without being overly fixated on straightness, we now have a much more even plane upon which to place our second plaster layer. For most of the house, this will consist of clay, straw, water and sand. On the north bump-out, this will consist of clay, straw, sand, lime putty and water. Scott will begin the second layer in late August.