[GSBN] prefab strawbale

[Jeff Ruppert]

Hi all,

We have worked with two clients in Colorado to develop panel systems.  
One went through construction while the other never made it off the 
desk.  It was easy to see all of the merits of these systems and I 
believe they have value.

The original motivation for this thread was that SB is not making much 
of a dent in mainstream activity.  This has been a frustration of mine 
for a long time.  Stacking bales is easy, but nobody wants to do it.  It 
is dirty, itchy and downright not fun after the 400th bale.  There is no 
industry, or should I say, bale-stackers, waiting for work because it is 
not a skilled task.  This alone makes it very difficult for a mainstream 
builder to find someone to do the work.

I created a roaming wall-building crew and it lasted for a few years.  
We stacked and plastered day after day.  Work was never close to home so 
we were always traveling.  It was tough keeping hired help on for longer 
than six months.  Who wants to live like that?  The pay for stacking 
bales is near nothing in todays market.  As most of you already know, 
labor costs for a built-in-place bale wall dwarf the material costs, and 
that needs to be brought more in-line with other comparable systems if 
it is to really compete.  It is time-consuming and messes up other 
subcontractors' schedules due to how long it takes.

Straw bale construction has much merit and somehow needs to jump to the 
next level.  An owner-builder can always choose to stack their own 
bales, no one will stop them.  But if we really want to see it make a 
dent in resource productivity, prefab panels are the best idea yet.  If 
we don't care where it goes, let's just keep stacking one bale at a time 
vertically and hope for the best.

Jeff