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How much barbed wire do I need?

 
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How do I calculate how much barbed wire I need for our houses? We will have a few tiny domes that are 100 sq ft and below. Then we will have a few vertical walls. How do I calculate how much we need total? And would I use 1 strand or 2 between courses?
 
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Barbed wire comes in 1/4 mile lengths (1,320 ft.) usually.
To calculate, all you need is to measure the wall lengths then add them up, two strands per course are standard, one near the exterior and one near the interior.
Do not forget to tamp each course then lay on the two strands of barbed wire.

Using landscape type Wire staples to hold the barbed wire in place really helps, so you don't fight it when you start the new course of earth bags.
 
Felicia Daniels
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Bryant RedHawk wrote:Barbed wire comes in 1/4 mile lengths (1,320 ft.) usually.
To calculate, all you need is to measure the wall lengths then add them up, two strands per course are standard, one near the exterior and one near the interior.
Do not forget to tamp each course then lay on the two strands of barbed wire.

Using landscape type Wire staples to hold the barbed wire in place really helps, so you don't fight it when you start the new course of earth bags.



That's a good point about the staples, thank you! I tried doing some calculating last night and from what I can figure, I'll need about 28,775 feet. Will I need to lay barbed wire between courses for built ins like benches, etc?

By the way, do you know anything about lime plaster? One idea we had for the roof needed to catch our rainwater was to build an ebag dome, cover the outside with lime plaster and then attach a gutter all around the base of the roof (kind of like a headband in a way) and have the rain run down the roof into the gutter and then into our barrels. Does that make sense? Is it safe for us to consume rainwater that has touched lime plaster?
 
Bryant RedHawk
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If you are tying things like benches to the exterior walls, then yes I would add wire to tie the two together.

Lime plaster can be water durable but usually it is not "direct hit" situated as a roof will be.

I have used lime plaster but only for exterior walls that had a 4 foot overhang protecting them.
I have repaired Lime plaster walls that were eroded from a lot of "splash up" from the wall not having a tall enough foundation. (this was on a cob house in New York State).
 
Felicia Daniels
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Bryant RedHawk wrote:If you are tying things like benches to the exterior walls, then yes I would add wire to tie the two together.

Lime plaster can be water durable but usually it is not "direct hit" situated as a roof will be.

I have used lime plaster but only for exterior walls that had a 4 foot overhang protecting them.
I have repaired Lime plaster walls that were eroded from a lot of "splash up" from the wall not having a tall enough foundation. (this was on a cob house in New York State).



What if we put a coat of linseed oil over the lime plaster? Would that protect it more? Or should we go with a different kind of outside plaster? We've decided to put the cob on the inside of the houses only. And we've decided to build a stand alone roof over the courtyard we're going to build with fiberglass as the roofing and then leave the domes hatless like how I mentioned above if you think that would work. We get about 53" of rain each year.
 
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Lime washes and Silicates are better than linseed on external lime--but regardless, at 53" annual rainfall, by far the wisest is to put a roof on your house. Good Eaves harvest the water that would soak your lower walls and give you dry storage/porch.
If this isn't a house but a coop or some such, and you really want a plastered roof, synthetic elastomeric stucco may be the most worthy of your rainfall...and I'd still be tempted to shingle on a membrane underneath.
Roofless Domes are for dry deserts.


I think that you May like hypar roofs.
 
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