sophie streit

Hello,

that makes it a lot easier for me - thinking in inch and feet is a challenge if not use to it.

Well it takes me few day to figure out that I am not very good in bringing on paper what I have in mind. Maybe also because I am flexible and would like to "grow" with the building process.
I made a kind of plan but as I said - its not good - not professional and maybe my 7 year old would have it done better but I hope it is usable and give you an idea.

All cob or straw bale will be on a stonewall which is about 50 cm wide and 50 cm in height.
I think I am going to have 2 sides of cob (west and north), one side with straw bale (east - as i just want to see how they perform in Ireland) and one side cob and slip straw.
On the straw bale side I will add a layer of cob - about 25 cm to get a straight surface for the base plate. The straw bale side must not be load bearing. The cob walls should be load bearing but I would like to have temporary posts to hold the roof as I really do not trust the weather here.
The north wall gives me some headache as it is shared with the building next to it. it not a very straight wall and there are lot of loose stones but I cant take it down because the roof of the side building will come down then too.
So I thought I will "glue" the wall together with cob and "straightened " it out and will have a post there for the ridge beam so that this wall will not have any additional weight to carry.

The inner dimensions are: 3,5 x 4,6 cm the walls are 50 cm thick. so the building will be on the outside: 5,2 x 5,8 cm
I think I am going with the ash tree as the rhododendron might be a to big challenge for me I want to keep the roof as low as possible.

I am very excited that my husband brought home my first window from the waste side So all the windows in the plan are not fix. Its more to show that I want 3 windows on the west side and 2 on the south. But if they are round or so - I do not know yet.

So I think first thing for me is to buy a dwarknife for debarking and think about how to get the posts for the ridge beam fixed in the ground....Should I treat the wood with anything? and will I just dig out a hole, place the post and fill it up with concrete? Or are there better ways? I always have in mind that I am only renting so I do not want to spend endless money for wood treatment and so on.
Any advice is very welcome

Hello,

I have not found time for a drawing today but I make the photo of the other tree I have in mind (Ash). So one of them should be the ridge beam.

And I did some measurement:
The stone walls are 50 cm wide.
The inside of the building will be 3,5 meter by 5,2 meter

The Rhododendron has a size of 71 cm (circumference) and the ash about 85 cm

By the way ....is it easier to measure in inch and feet for you or are cm and meter ok?
I hope to find tomorrow time for the drawing...I downloaded the programme from google but did not have a closer look at it yet.

Hello again,

I totally agree with you. I have lot of books about strawbale building and cob and earthbag and a dvd set about straw bale and I was on a short 1 day cob introduction course but there is nothing more worth than help from a forum as books can never loot so close to some ones individual project. Having a blog is nice and I am sure I will post things on my own blog too - but mainly to keep my family up to date. I am from Austria but live in Ireland since 2 years now. So there is no family involved in the building process. We live very isolated so there are no neighbours who could help. So it will basically be myself and my husband. There is no time pressure at all so for this summer it would be nice to have the roof finished, gathering all the materials I might need like used windows and doors. The sheepwool for roof insulation (which I am sure I will get from our closest neighbour), clay, lime...

Now:
Will you be "firming up" the wall a bit prior to applying a roof load?
I am not sure what you mean by that - sorry my English does not develop a lot since I am here - I just do not get the chance to talk to people often
I would like to post the beams for the roof on the outside of the building. I think I do some drawing tomorrow - then I have a better idea and might be easier to explain to.

Will you do the stone work yourself?
I hope there will be not much stonework Within two weeks I will have the stonewall ready on a size of 50 cm and the place cleaned up - hopefully. But if there is any stone work I will do it myself.

Is the stone walls "dry laid" or "mortared"?
The stonewalls were mortared but most of the mortar felled out over time - so I will do that as well during the building process.

How will you get the trees down?
With our chainsaw We already cut a lot of trees for heating in the winter. So we are kind of used to do that.

Will you have a local saw mill turn them into beams, hew them yourself, or try and use them in the round?
No, there is no mill around so I was thinking to debark the with a dwarknife and use them round.

I was out and took a picture of the rhododendron...it look a bit narrower as it actually is I measure it tomorrow. It has very big curves - maybe too much twisted and curved - don't know but the roof might look funny with this one.

What a funny co-accident Well I do not own the land - we are renting but the house is getting to small for my crafty things (felting) So on the Land is a stone ruin and I took down the walls to a height of about 50 cm as the walls where very old and unstable on the top - I was always concerned about the kids climbing on it. On parts of the wall it was already on the 50 cm height The west wall is currently covert with lot of earth from the outside which we are going to remove next week when we are renting an excavator.
So I have now a stone wall for building on. And my idea was to build the north and east wall with straw and the south(unfortunately a small south side) and west with cob. But since I decides not to build load bearing I could imagine to use straw clay as well. It is - as I said more an experiment but it would be great to get much experience out of it as in a few years we are hoping to buy our own land and build on it in the same way.

There is not much forest on the land but the landlord want to cut the evergreens as they are getting very high and take all the sun from the garden and the house. So I do think I will have enough wood for the roof and beams.

There are so many lovely pictures around the internet with tiny cob sheds/houses build buy "normal" people so I hope I can do it as well I thought it would be good to build the roof first and then the walls as we really have a lot of rain here

Thanks a lot for your help - i really appreciate any advise on any part of the building....
I will go out tomorrow and make some pictures of the trees that I have in mind for the ridge beam.
Here are some pictures from the stone ruin but before I removed the stones to the 50 cm height...so it is not an up to date picture but nice to get an idea....

Thanks a lot for your help,

I am in Ireland and - I never build a wooden frame or roof before - that shed is kind of my experimenting playground. I will get help for the roof but I just started thinking what I have on the land and what not I like to make it a little cob/straw bale shed.

Would Rhododendron wood make a ridge beam as well - I have lovely curved rhododenron trees here....I would like to end up with something not "professional" looking but safe. Something like this:
http://small-scale.net/scrap/gobcob-thumb.jpg

Just not so round

Hello,

I hope to find some help here,...I like to build a roof about 6,5 meter x 5,5 meter with a curved ridge beam....

I found only 2 trees on our land which have a nice curve - one is an ash tree the other a pine...it the wood from those trees usable for ridge beams?
I have no idea of any static aspects but is there a certain diameter they should have for that size of roof?

And then I have lot of spruce trees - can I use them for beams?

I am really just starting to think about these things ....Its just for a shed used as a little work room for me as well - does not have to last for 100 of years but it would be nice not just fall on my head in the next 5 years

Also like to ask how to treat the wood if debarked?

Thanks for helping.

I planned to make a little studio with straw bales but due to a fooder shortage here I just can't find straw bales unless transport them a far distance. So I thought I switch to tires but I only read a little about building with tires...are there some good websites with how to....

I would have 2 first questions on building with tires:

1. Can I fill in any type of soil?
2. How can I insulate a tire wall?

Thanks for helping....

Thank you for your welcome.

I started to day to take down the stone wall...well only a bit - there are big stones in and they are heavy. I decided to take them down to a height of 50 cm....the old walls are nice but they are just not stable any more.
I also try to dig out some dirt - there seems to be stone beneath...but I do not know yet if it it is concrete or just rocks.

Hello,
I found this very interesting forum and after reading in it about a week I would like to show you my summer project for this year and hope to find some advise here.
And I hope you can follow my ideas as English is not my mother tongue and I am sometimes missing the right words

First a few facts:
- We are only renting - so I do not want to spend a lot of money for the building
- I never build before but I have looked through many books about straw bale, cob and earth bag
- I'd like to make a small felting studio as I simply have not enough room for it in the house.
- There was an old stone building on the place where I want to build ...there is a second building right next where the Landlord build a new roof on without fixing the walls first and the wall in the middle is shared by the two buildings.
- I am in Ireland (West Cork) - I know that is probably not the best place to build with straw bales but it should be fine for a few years. Also just want to see how straw bale buildings performe here to build our house maybe in the future - so it is kind of my test building as well.
- I would love to have a green roof.

So, here where my ideas and concerns:
- take down the existing walls (except the one shared with the building next to it) to a height of about 50-80 cm
Concern: I am not sure if the walls are in a good enough condition.... Where the walls are really thick (about 80 cm) you can see that there are many "airspaces"..... and many bugs seems to life in it. So I am not sure about either get a digger and remove everything and rebuild the stone wall or just grouting the existing wall after taking them down to 50 cm.
Especially the shared gives me some headache as it really leans into the place where I want to build and I do not risk to bring the roof down. So I thought I make my new building a bit shorter and build a separate wall.
The west wall is covert with the subsoil and rocks from the main house.... I will have to remove that as well.

Windows and doors: I would like to have a door in the east wall and 1 window each in the south and west wall.

I am not sure about building load bearing or post and beam. I would have the wood on the land but I would have to cut it first Here is a little forest of evergreens here and the landlord would like those trees to be cut as they got way to high and take all the sun from the house. So I would like to make the roof or posts (if needed/wanted) with round wood.
I would prefer the load bearing just because I think it is less labor intensive.

I could also imagine not to build with straw bale but with cob instead - only thing is that I do not have a subsoil with lot of clay in it....

I attached some pictures how it looks now.

Those are just my first thoughts...I am really at the start. I am open to any suggestion or ideas.

Thanks a lot for helping
Sophie