Straw Bales Comin’ Atcha…Some Flat Side Up, Some Edges Up.

We’ve had some experimenting going on with the directionality of the straw bales when putting up the walls for a straw bale house.   Some are going in with the FLAT side of the bale (looks like the straw is laying out in a line) while other bales are taking the tall and narrow aspect with the cut side on top.

The straw bale construction will work either way.  Even both ways could be applied if necessary.

For my construction choice of a post and beam structure, I prefer the flay bale method.  Bales on edge have the strings on the side of the bale, making notching  around posts and beams a nightmare. Flat sides of the straw bales have the string on the top, ends and bottom. To notch the edge side straw, bale the strings would have to be cut and eliminated. Retying the bales on the cut and folded sides just does not work very well.

However, if you can figure how to retie only the bales that have to be notched, you will save a few bales using the edge side approach. You will gain four inches of floor space on each side while finishing the house with a very small loss of R-value.

When building a straw bale houses with load-bearing walls, laying the bales on edge is not as labor intensive as on a post and beam house because there are no posts to notch around. Again using the edge method will require fewer bales. There is a question of stability, the walls are only 14 inches wide instead of 18 inches. On a small structure with low walls, only five bales high, the stability question may not be as important.

As noted over on the sister blog,  Straw Bale Construction in Missouri, think, measure, research and think again. Before you make the decision to lay the bales on edge to gain space, weigh the pros and cons.  Is it really worth it?

Keep your bales dry, Richard