[GSBN] Floods in Queensland, Australia

[Chris Newton]

Hi all

We have some photos today, tomorrow we will see it. No moisture meter required. That is water you can see on the straw. Surprised with the neat line the flood has left us on the inside. The full height walls were compressed with threaded rods. The walls under the windows have the slab sills sitting on some ply. The ply top plate was compressed using wire and gripples. 

Chris


From: Chris Newton 
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 8:30 AM
To: larskeller at gmail.com ; (private, with public archives) Global Straw Building Network 
Cc: Lance Kairl 
Subject: Re: [GSBN] Floods in Queensland, Australia

Thanks Lars

We are bouncing ideas over breakfast. The bottom one or 2 bales are gone – given. There is a new flood level. We are considering that we should replace the bales with another material such as Hebel blocks (aerated concrete). Still waiting to eyeball the building. 

Any word on the SB you did out outside Rockhampton John. 

Chris


From: Lars Keller 
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 4:52 AM
To: (private, with public archives) Global Straw Building Network 
Subject: Re: [GSBN] Floods in Queensland, Australia

Dear Chris, 

I have no experience equalling this.

I have 2 experiences with water:

- water seeking down through very localised areas.
Then what happens always is that the water follows the "flakes" within the bale. And moves  straight down. Creating a black, bad line that can be as thin as a few centimeters, stretching from the leaking point to where the water can run out in the bottom.
What we have managed to do when we have found such a place very early on is drilling holes through the plaster to the wall, from both sides, and that way created a draft, which has dried it up so we didnt have to do more.

What is probably more relevant is the following:
- a workshop where the bales had been put straight on a concrete footer (bad), with a piece of tar-paper in-between the footer and the wall (ok), but the tar-paper had been folded up, app. 200mm on each side, creating a huge water-catchment device (BAD), and the house had no eaves for a long time (BAD), located in very windy and rainy Denmark, and no plaster (BAD).
The result was that the bottom 200mm went black and slimy. Absolutely utterly useless. And from exactly 200mm and up everything was fine.
There was earthen plaster on the inside.

What we did was the following:
we took one bale out at a time and replaced it. As it was the bottom bale and it was plastered on the inside it had been compressed a fair bit, so it was hard to get the new one in place. We did this by sliding it in between to sheets of aluminium with handles on. And then two persons on their backs kicking it in. The earthen plaster on the inside flexed and shook but didnot crack. The length of the wall app. 40 meters.

All the best,
Lars


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