Francisco Reyes

I'm curious, will I need to insulate the wire or can it just be laying there on the ground or can it penetrate the roof layers? Do I just grapple it to the wood frame to tie it down? Will a metal pole attract the lightning away from my house? I thought it only worked when it's above the place you want to protect.

Well, the roof is "underground" but the walls are above the ground. And lightning surely hits the ground time to time I think.

Hello, I made this topic to ask if anyone has any experience installing lightning rods over green roofs. I already have a rough understanding of the layers in a green roof but I'm clueless when it comes to electric installations, I'm not sure if lightning rods is something I can DIY even though I heard from some people it's just a small metal rod wired to a large rod in the ground, has anyone tried to do it on a green roof before? I'm also worried because said green roof is gonna be over a timber frame house filled with straw bale, I saw someone here had their straw-bale house destroyed by lightning so I wonder if there's anything else I should take into consideration.

PS. I'm near but not under a high-voltage line, does that affect the installation in anyway? thanks for any info you can share.

Well, I was planning to make a small straw bale house with concrete posts and a small wood structure to keep the bales in place, I was wondering how easy is it for any rotting in the straw to move on to the wood? thus forcing me to trash everything. I've heard of people building concrete columns to support the roof and then tying the straw to it that way even if the walls rot I can just tear them down without trashing everything.

[quote=Nick I'd suggest getting a few bales and subjecting them to mistreatment before committing, though. See how they get on.


By mistreating them you mean try to compress them or leaving to weather out in the open? Apparently sorghum straw us the same material they made old brooms out of (at least here) so I think it can hold pretty well, also wouldn't lime or clay plaster protect from degradation?

I actually found a building manual done by local government which suggests using wheat or rice straw but says sorghum "straw" can be used if it doesn't contain any seeds, apparently there were some projects done as demonstration but I can't find the exact location to ask around, I think I'll take this in good faith and try to go ahead with a small sorghum straw structure to see if it's viable, thanks everyone

Anne Miller wrote:

Well, if I can't access straw I can't do cob or straw-bale houses, which other alternatives are there apart from compressed earth blocks? I don't want to try my hand at earth ships also

John F Dean wrote:It is my understanding that neither sorghum nor grass produce straw.

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These are the sorghum bales they offer me

Hello, no one around here farms wheat, there's only sorghum or dry grass cuttings as straw bales, anyone know if those can work as well as wheat straw bales? Also I heard they don't apply any chemicals to them so I wonder if I should spray them with something beforehand (ex. insecticide) and if you can recommend such, thank you very much.