Re: Barn suggestions - Straw Barns

[Niccolai Murphy <niccolai_m@yahoo.com>]

Had a few enquiries about this, so here's the groups reply to save
wear on my already torn index finger tendon (no a horse didn't do it,
it happened doing house work)...

I saw a photo in a magazine a decade or so ago of some very old
houses, I think they were in soggy old N. California. The photos
showed houses made from straw bales covered with mud. I gather that
it's becoming more common to use straw again as a construction
material and there is a construction grade straw available.

A year after seeing the photos, I went out and bought some oat straw
bales, rebar, some wood, wire mesh, roof shingles, nails and concrete.
Sank some concrete for the foundation. Stacked the bales like giant
bricks and nailed them together with two foot lengths of rebar. Being
a hay barn, the only opening I needed was a door, but windows would
have been easy enough. You use a large saw to trim the edges straight,
though the lumpy look grows on you. When the walls were up, the wire
mesh was wired on and stucco applied. The roof was a standard A-Frame
shingle roof. If I were still in old Blighty I might have gone for a
thatched roof.

Our barn is probably about as small as you can go without having a
rediculous ratio of wall thickness to floor space, it fits 20 bales.
It sits on the side of our hill and hasn't been blown away by the
Santa Ana's nor shaken apart by the quakes. It hasn't degraded in any
way that I can detect, except the roof will need new shingles in
another decade or so.

I used oat straw because that's what the feed store had handy and I
didn't need alot. However for a bigger barn it might have been worth
hauling in some rice straw which is supposed to be superior.

==
http://freeweb.socal.wanet.com/hlurphy/
Nicco Murphy - Poway, San Diego, CA



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