Load-bearing walls waiting preparation

by Tony Caniglia – Colorado, USA

This technique was developed to reduce the amount of fill with loose straw
or straw/clay required when the bent (rounded) sides of the bales are butted
together. The purpose is to remove the bulge on the ends of the bales so
that the bales are squared up and fit right up tight together.

Prepping the bales before stacking them can help make them nice and square.
Do this somewhere away from the house or building for fire safety, to keep
the dust away from other workers, and to collect the loose straw that will
be created.  Start with a large number of bales. Use a couple of other bales
to help hold one bale stand up on end. With your chainsaw, cut downward a
few inches next to the strings on the end of the bale and move the chainsaw
out toward the edge of the bale.  The bales may have a little roundness
between the strings, so clean that area up, too. Try and keep your chain saw
level, and don¹t hit those strings! Step back to eyeball it to see if the
bale looks square. Clean up 6 to 10 bales, then set the chainsaw down and
flip all the bales over to stand them up on the other end, and do the other
side. You may have to lay the bales on edge and, with a little jump, put
your knee into the bale or hit it with a sledge hammer if it has a curve to
it. You could also lay the bales flat on top of a bench, if you don¹t want
to bend over or want to keep the bale stable (another person working with
you can help make this work easier, too).

You may occasionally hit a string with your chainsaw, say one out of ten,
but it is easy to restring the bale. Just tie another piece of string about
16 inches long to the cut string and make a loop knot on one end. Put the
other end through the loop, crank it down (pull it tight) and tie it off.
Once square, the bales push together better and will help make the walls
more stout with less voids. This means little or no stuffing with loose
straw. When the bales are stacked, grab a 4-ft level, a couple of sledge
hammers (or other ³bale bangers² as you prefer) and get another person to
help. One of you should stand on the inside of the wall and the other one on
the outside of the wall. Smack the bales so they don¹t overlap one another
too much. Focus on getting one side as plumb as you can (for example, work
on getting the inside plumb). Now trim the surface of the bales on both
sides of the wall (inside and out) with a chainsaw or weed whacker. Be sure
to do the whole wall, top to bottom. That will help to finish cleaning up
any overlapping bales and any humps, bumps and lumps. This nice, plumb wall
will make your lathing, netting, plastering and troweling process easier,
not to mention the money you will save in stucco materials! And these
beautiful, straight walls may make your building easier to sell in the
future!

by Joyce Coppinger – Nebraska, USA

Tips about Bales
Why wait until you have the framing done and the roof on before finding
your bales. Find your bales during the planning process and well before you
begin construction. Knowing the size of the bales before you design the
building will help you determine wall spans and wall heights, perhaps saving
some of the cutting and retying of the bales, and can help you decide how to
stack the bales­ flat or on edge. Placement of windows and doors may be
easier to determine. You will even have time to select the best bales to
use, eliminating those that might have weeds and seeds, signs of moisture or
mildew, or aren’t shaped or tied well. For help in finding and buying your
bales, try these web sites:

www.strawlocator.com – At this web site, you can list the specifications for
the bales you need for your project, and you can search the listings of bale
suppliers.

www.hayexchange.com – Remember “hay” is not “straw” when searching this web
site.

www.thelaststraw.org – Click on Back Issues & CD-Rom, then scroll down to
2003 Resource Guide. The highlighted article titled Bale Wisdom-Bale Buying
101 lists 20 tips for buying your bales, information on bale orientation,
bale storage and handling bales.

When you know the size of the bales in the design process, you can
calculate wall heights so that you have full bales in each course,
eliminating the need to fill flakes and cakes at the top of the wall. You
can also calculate the placement of windows and doors so they fit readily
into the bale courses as they are stacked and/or the framing for the windows
can be spaced so a full bale fits under and above the windows and above the
doors.

Trimming the bales to eliminate the bent or folded (rounded) ends will
give you a rectangular unit to work with. All sides of the bale will have
cut stems and, when the bales are stacked, will lock together better­top,
bottom and sides. The triangular hole between bales that occurs when bales
are not cut will be eliminated, so you won’t have to stuff as much loose
straw or light straw/clay fill between the bales and bale courses. (See Tech
Tip, pg 23)