Kyle Moss

Yeah, the walls were of straw bale but I ended up mudding with clay and then packing with LSC and additional mud on that.  Seems to be the best method to fill in the wells.

Sorry for posting and being late but I am good so far.  I don't mind the wells in the walls and the walls not being fully "FLAT" but some people do and was just interested.  Since this is a living wall I can't really sheet rock it due to the risk of moisture and mold within the straw.  Some of the house was packed using LSC but it sounds like they wanted something a little lighter up top.  Walls are 8ft tall and supports were fed through the wall.  It looks good, I'll get some pictures!

Hey all.. is there an easy way to mud.. we have some straw bales that are not even and some have a 4" run.. would like to get the wall somewhat even and was wondering what wire mesh or something I could use to help even the walls out?  Maybe level it with LSC and then float it?

best thing I found was a kemp shredder, heavy duty and it makes straw so fine that it's perfect for filling and plaster.

If it's white hair mold then it's harmless, put a fan in the room of a dehumidifier.  It will eventually die and can be brushed off.

I would like to finish my own thread, so the walls did heat up but eventually they died out and the temperature is nothing more of that than the ambient temp now.  Moisture is falling and is around 20-30 percent so that is a huge deal.  I want to stress with 12" walls you only check moisture at the 4" mark.  I'm not sure why but that is what I was told per the ASTM, but I also found the same talk in the econest book.

Maybe a drawing would help here, I say this because I don't really know the landscape and how the house is situated.  What if the entire building is in a knoll or a basin?

Also, what kind of roof is this?  Where does it shed water?  Soil type in grade (sand, all clay, bedrock?),

Watch the rain, see where it goes, all water has to flow somewhere and yes the ground will absorb some.  Many times you can eliminate this with laying some draining.  Since you want it all natural you can dig a trench and fill that with sea shells and then get some #2 stone, slop all of this away from the house.  Lots of things you can do but.. need more info.

Sure,

So we have a larsen truss (ladder system) which hangs on the outside of the timber frame.  We put straw through a tumbler and then coat that straw with slip.  The slip is a clay mixture of clay and water, I run it thick but the straw will only take so much of that coating and the clay slip falls to a tub.  Once all this passes through the tumble we board the trusses and pack the walls.  Using a 2x6 it's smashed into the walls.  Once the wall is packed we open it to the outside.  The inside and the outside of the wall is exposed to air for drying.  I have a 4ft roof over hang, which keeps water away..BUT the question is why the wall is heating up.

The wall is pretty thick, 12" in some parts of the home, 13" in other parts so it's a rather large walls system.

The straw is heating up because it's wet, when packed I'm always around 45-46 percent moisture which is expected.  What I didn't expect was the heat, I suppose there is some sort of thing happening inside the walls causing it to heat up.  Composting because of the wet clay slip?  I've heard of straw bales being store in barns wet and then the gases created from the composting causes them to explode.

I'm just concern that the wall will catch fire but perhaps I'm overthinking this.  The walls are packed super tight and I do have a few that never even went over 100F.  Moisture has fallen to 15% but in the middle I'm looking at 25% which given some more time I believe will dry out to about 1-20% mark.  These walls are fine and pretty much have harden to concrete feel. This one wall seems hot to me but maybe I can control it with a dehumidifier and seal the wall with plastic.  Just see what people experience doing this..OR have ran into.. maybe it's a normal thing.. I don't know.

So I’ve been building with straw and I’m curious on what others think.  We had a good slip going but one wall is running around 122f internal temp.  It’s about a 13” thick wall and about 8ft tall.  It’s in a Larsen truss and the bottom is exposed and the top is exposed.  We started to vent the outside of it to keep the heat down.  Most of the other walls are running about 37 percent moisture but the temp is around 70f which is the temp outside.  Any need to be worried?  I’m guessing it’s just some decomposing happening.  At any rate it is infused with clay so I’m not sure if that adds a difference.  I’ve just heard stories of barns combusting because of straw and hay being stacked and the heat gets trapped.  Typically 1000 bales or more.

Good day;

I'm in the process of building a timber frame home.  We own roughly 30 acres of property with good size eastern white pine standing timbers.  We have several local farmers that offer high quality straw that I plan on using for the walls with clay we can harvest locally.  I would like to build a natural living home for my wife and two kids but I am hitting a road block with the foundation.  I have an unlimited supply of rock and large boulders as I run a small excavation business.  I thought about using rock and cement but I'm a little nervous building something that is of that high in load bearing.  The timber frame home is a 1.5 story home and is 30ft wide by 50 long.  I have several quotes for ICF and form basement but the cost is hard to swallow.  I love the fact that with stone walling it can be built as time goes on.

Suggestion?  Any books on building walk out foundations with stone?