Hey Bill!
Strangely enough, I don't have building permits here, either. I just need to show Missouri DNR that this kind of building works, or more specifically, that other governments have accepted that this kind of building works. Then they can tell the local tire recycler he can release the bales to me.
Their main concern is that the baling wire will corrode and release the bales before the the tires lose their elasticity and then I'll end up with tires being flung all over the place. Based on what I'm reading, four out of five wires have to corrode before you start to have a problem, and while you might have one or two fluke failures in the first couple of decades, the chances that even one bale out of hundreds will go bad in the first decades should be negligible. Since the bales are stacked in a running bond, even if that happens, the neighbors should be more than enough to keep it from moving at all.
The project itself, since you're curious, is not a house, but a wedding venue castle. Basically, we're using the tire bales as the outer wall which we will backfill with a long slope on which the rest of our buildings will be built. The tire wall will be 8-12 feet high and will support low crenelations at alternating at 3 and 4 feet tall along the top edge. I'll stucco the front face, probably with shotcrete, unless someone knows a better way. Some of our wall will want to be taller towers up to 20 feet, and I expect to reinforce and stabilize those with an interior structure, plus their round profile should strenghten them greatly. I understand it's a bad idea to free stack tires much over 25 feet. In total, I have around 1600-2000 feet of wall to put in, so I think you can instantly see why I'm looking at tire bales. I'd like to finish within my lifetime. I also have the tools I need to do most of this already.
Any wisdom you may have is greatly appreciated, and if your Kansas site is anywhere close to the border with central Missouri (closest KS town to me is Ft. Scott), I'd love to make the trip out and see what you're doing and how.
