[GSBN] Question about SB insulation at foundation/ceiling

[Bruce King]

The idea of using any cellulosic material at or near grade just makes  
me nervous and ill.  We have a world of experience telling us that  
wood, paper-faced gypsum board and straw don't last long there, or  
anywhere near there.  Recall Kim Thompson's well-documented problems  
using bales between floor joists over a Nova Scotia crawlspace.

But how, then, to insulate?  I guess I would argue for the use of a  
naturally-occuring substance that can make a durable and also  
effective insulator in the presence of moisture, namely petroleum.  It  
takes a bit of unpleasant processing to turn oil into foam (that is,  
something that entraps air which is the real insulator), and god knows  
we need to improve on the weird stuff currently on the market.  But if  
there is any good use for petroleum, this is surely one.  Not for our  
cars, not for crappy plastic packaging & throwaway junk, but for  
effective, durable, reuseable insulation.

Or anyway I'm still waiting for a viable "natural" ground insulation  
suggestion that isn't a super labor intensive fuss job.

Shredded plastic bags, anyone?

Thanks,

Bruce "Oil gladly pay you Tuesday for some polyisocyanurate today!" King



On Jan 24, 2012, at 8:08 AM, Frank Tettemer wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have just received a message from the designer of the yoga centre,  
> that I was busy criticizing in my previous post.
> The Sivananda Yoga Centre is still alive and well over a decade later.
>
> I apologize to the GSBN group, and to Michel Bergeron, for handing  
> down that mis-information about the Sivananda Yoga Centre. Michel  
> has had no such reports of mold problems, and as the designer, he  
> would certainly be the first to hear about it.  It takes a foolish  
> commnet from someone like me, to deeply upset the credibility of  
> straw bale construction. And worst of all, this negative comment  
> coming from a straw bale builder!
>
> There's a strong lesson in all this for me, to examine all my  
> sources of information, and to not speak about things of which I  
> have no first hand knowledge.
>
> Deeply chagrined, deeply humbled,
>
> Frank Tettemer
>
>
> On Jan 24, 2012, Derek Roff wrote:
> I'm not sure if this discussion is still alive on the linked site  
> that Joyce posted.  The newest posting is just about a year old, but  
> perhaps the discussion will warm up again.  Bruce King posted a  
> comment last year, when the discussion was current.
>
> Something that wasn't mentioned in the article or comments is the  
> naive assumptions regarding the effective insulation value of the  
> strawbale waffle slab design, even before the bales start to rot.   
> The assertion is made, and not challenged, that the under-slab  
> strawbale insulation would provide R-50.  Whatever number we accept  
> as the insulative value of each bale, the thermal bridging of the  
> concrete in the matrix would cut the effective insulation of the  
> waffle slab design dramatically.  Thermal bridging isn't a problem  
> with the design sketch that Joyce included, but the risk of rot  
> probably remains.
>
> There is an alternative approach that uses bales as floor  
> insulation, but above grade.  After a European Straw Building  
> gathering a few years ago, traveling with Catherine Wanek, I visited  
> SB buildings in half a dozen countries, including several that used  
> strawbales in the floors, to meet Passiv Haus design goals.  All of  
> these structures were build on piers, so that the bales were above  
> grade and isolated from the moisture concerns that afflict buried  
> bales.  Here is a link to one example, the S-Haus in Austria.
>
> http://www.s-house.at/presentations.htm
>
> Bale-on,
> Derelict
>
> Derek Roff
> derek at unm.edu <mailto:derek at unm.edu>
>
> On Jan 23, 2012, at 10:40 AM, Frank Tettemer wrote:
>
> Well now,
> that is pretty interesting.
> Thanks, Joyce, for sounding the alarm.
>
> Before I actually (physically and personally), had built any SB  
> houses, I naturally ass-u-me-d that bales in the floor and ceiling  
> were a good idea.
> It is too bad that the article in finehomebuilding references the  
> experimental work of Michel Bergeron, of ArchiBio, in the ground- 
> breaking book of Steen/Steen/Bainbridge/and Eisenberg.  I love the  
> book, and it is what gave me hope for the idea of burying bales  
> below grade.
>
> Fortunately for me, Linda Chapman, (archi. from Ottawa), talked with  
> me about doing this in the early nineties.
> She had boldly gone where no one had gone before. And the floor  
> rotted.
>
> And there was the evidence from the huge three-story yoga retreat  
> centre, built in Quebec,
> which was such a rotten embarrassment, that I won't mention it  
> anymore.
>
> Then there's the theory that if you stick each bale into a garbage  
> bad before you bury them under the floor ...
> just to say I did, I took a bale, put it into a garbage bag, and  
> placed it into a weather-protected shed, to see what happened.
> First of all, it took three trys with the garbage bad to place a  
> bale into it, without it being punctured by straw.
> Secondly, during the summer of 2000, which was a fairly wet year,  
> the bale self-composted, with out having had a drop of rain on it. I  
> imagine that relative humidity was all it took. It was full of  
> mildew in two months time.
>
> I have to say, though, that the idea is so intriguing, that it  
> captures the imagination of quite a few clients, who would wish me  
> to design a foundation using straw bales.
> Maybe it's just a stupid idea, here in a climate with huge weather  
> extremes, (+35C to -35C), and many days of damp rainy weather?
> Maybe all the ideas have not been tried as yet?
>
> Frank
>
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