[GSBN] Stacking Bales was thin concrete shell roofs

[John Glassford]

G ' day

I have to disagree with my Skillful Twin re roofing before stacking.

If you are in a very very wet place that rains all the time then maybe you
roof first.

We are developing our hybrid method and improving on it all the time.

In essence we prepare all the door and window frames together with bottom
and top plates.

We then erect the frames and fix the bottom plates in place.  Then the bales
are stacked top plates attached an compression takes place.

Once this is complete we put the roof trusses on and sheeting.

I feel that this is a very very strong method that combines the best of
frame and load bearing walls.  We get excellent compression using all
threaded rods in pairs every 1.8 metres.

The building is very stable and best of all it is a very quick method.

The last hybrid we did was a 300 square meter 4 bed room house in a high
rain fall area of New South Wales.

Is it cheaper than in-fill?  Absolutely.  Is it quicker?  Yes by far.  Is it
strong?:  Very very strong.

You can follow the progress of the last one we did on the front page of our
web site:

http://glassford.com.au/main

Just scroll down to the start of the build and then scroll up as to the
stages in 5 days.

You can also see a 3 bed room hybrid that we built in Victoria here and we
actually roofed that one during the 8 days that we completed the job in:

http://glassford.com.au/main

Obviously the down side is NOT getting the roof on straight after the wall
raising however with good planning and delivery of materials this should not
occur.  If it does we have found that a building can take a lot of rain
falling if you prepare the walls well with a cover under the top plate again
see the photos on the web site above.  We have not had any problems with
this method since we started using it 3 years ago now.

We are just about to go do another one this time at Coffs Harbour on the
North Coast of New South Wales and it gets pretty wet up there at times,
like now, so we will see what happens.  However the roof is there ready to
go on now and we will have the walls up next weekend.

I do not often disagree with my twin brother or my Kiwi mates but it works
well for us and for our clients.

Kind regards
John Glassford
Huff 'n' Puff Constructions
http://www.glassford.com.au
61 2 6927 6027
In Australia (02) 6927 6027

Mountains of the Moon 2011
http://www.mountainsofthemoon.org
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