Garage almost ready for rendering

One thing that we are learing over and over again as part of this building process, is that things generally takes longer than you originally thought they would do. This has most certainly been the case for fixing the chicken wire onto the strawbales and making the garage walls ready for rendering.

There are different techniques and ideas about how to render strawbales; some people us earth render, others mud render, others a sand based render, and some a mixture of one or more of the above. There are apparently strawbale houses in the US that have been standing for well over 100 years and are still doing well, but the crucial part of making strawbale building work is the proper rendering.

Originally we had hoped to use an earty/mud render, but due to the exposed nature of our site (ready: times with lots of wind, and with horizontal rain at times) it has been recommended that we do at least put in some sort of cement and lime to help the struckture of the render. Further, since we do not have any really good materials on site to use, it is better for us to use a sand based render. We are yet to try our first mix, but the planned mixture is currently 60 parts of corse sand, 20 parts of fat sand, 20 parts of lime and 8 parts of cement. For the first layer of render this will be mixed with water and some bondcrete (to make it stick better to the bales) in a reasonably wet mixture - probably somewhere between the texture of a pancake mix and a chocolate cake mix for the people out there who are happy to do some cooking. The first coat is meant to penetrate the bales with around 20-30 mm and to form a good base for the second coat. The second coat has the same mix relationship, but with less water to make it a bit firmer to work with. In this mixture we will also add some polypropylene fibres to enhance the struckture of the render and hence (hopefully) avoid cracks. The second layer is the thickest one and could easily be 20-30mm thick. It should be used to form the finishing you want on the wall, and for us, that will probably be one that is not completely straight, but one that follows the shapes of the bales (even though they might be a bit uneven). The final coat again uses the same mixture, but is thinner and we also plan to add oxides into this coat to get some interesting colours on the walls. Hopefully the oxides will ensure that we do not need to paint the walls in the future.

Well, that was all the theory behind it. The next few weeks will tell how the practical parts work. More will surely come on this later.

As for now, here are some extra pictures of the garage, now that chicken wire has been fixed onto the walls, using a curved needle to stich them to the bales. We will provide some more information on this later in our second chapter of strawbale technique used.

Double garage door almost completed. Some straw needs to be placed above the door lintle, and the sides of the doors need to be finalised with chicken wire.

Door jambs are made by using to pieces of 140x45 treated pine. These were joined together and then fixed to the steel posts using screws. The lintel is using 290 x 45 hybrid laminated boards (hardwood on the edges and pine in the middle). This is fixed to the steel lintel by brackets and screws.

Inside of of garage door. Door jamb made of treated pine. This will be used to fix the rail and brackets for the roller door that will eventually be installed. Chicken wire has been stiched onto the bales using baling twine.

Window in workshop ready for rendering. The blue tarp is on the outside to keep the rain away from the bales.

Any problems, please email webmaster. This page was last updated 24/07/2008