[GSBN] insulation vaue of straw bales

[David Eisenberg]

Hi Bruce and all,

Regarding that old ORNL thermal testing, I would guess that Nehemiah Stone
would be the most likely person to have the actual test results. I tried to
get them from Jeff Christian and others at ORNL a couple of years after the
testing was done. I was also trying to get them to complete the work they
had said they were going to do, which was analyze the results from the
testing following achieving a steady state thermal flux. At that point they
varied the external temperature to model weather patterns in several US
cities to get an effective calculated R-value that would take into account
the insulation and mass properties of the wall. They did that for other
wall systems they tested, but never performed the calculations for the
strawbale wall assembly even though they did the actual thermal testing. I
was never able to get either the original test results or more information
than the scant amount in various paper summarizing the whole wall thermal
testing facility and their rotatable guarded hot box test apparatus.

The paper that Nehemiah wrote, that is on the EBNet website describes the
testing but isn't the ORNL report. Hopefully Nehemiah will chime in on this.

David Eisenberg

On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Bruce King <bruce at ecobuildnetwork.org>
wrote:

>
> G’Day, GSBN —
>
> John Glassford wrote to me asking for some technical reports, in
> particular the thermal study done at Oak Ridge National Laboratories about
> 15 years ago.  I can’t find an electronic copy on my hard drive, but hope
> that one of you do and will load it up on the BuildWell Source here:
> http://buildwelllibrary.org/building-materials/fibers/straw/strawbale
>
> We’ve all been in John’s position, and will again:  when the technical
> stuff you mostly don’t care about or need you suddenly do, and in those
> moments we all need an easy, accessible place to find it.  That’s why we
> have the Source <http://buildwelllibrary.org>   But it is a user based,
> user-reviewed resource; we count on you to take a moment and upload
> whatever useful documents you may have so that everybody forevermore all
> have benefit of them.
>
> Please do take a moment to share whatever geeky jewells you may have — on
> straw, straw-clay, earthen building, bamboo, or any other part of natural
> building.  Someone someday will be very grateful that you did, but you can
> enjoy the warm satisfaction of your own selfless generosity right away!
>
> cheers,
>
> Bruce King
> (415) 987-7271
> bruce at bruce-king.com
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 7, 2016, at 7:23 PM, John Glassford <jacksflat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> G ' day Bruce
>
> Trust that you have fully recovered from your visit to the Land of the
> Long White Cloud.
>
> I am copying this to one of our valued clients John Beurle who is building
> an energy rated SITUPS home in Victoria.
>
> John needs some of the latest data on the R value of straw bale walls.  I
> only have the old work that was done  by Joe McCabe and Nehemiah Stone.
>
> John is going for a 9 star rated wall system for the Victorian Government.
>
> If you are able to help us it would be very much appreciated mate.
>
> Remember our down under rating systems are a wee bit different to yours in
> the USA.
>
> I am working on walls 350 mm thick i.e. bales on edge as well as allowing
> for render on the external walls at least using lime render 45 mm thick.
>
> Thanks mate.
>
> Kind regards
> Susan and John Glassford
> Huff 'n' Puff Constructions
> http://www.glassford.com.au
> 61 2 6927 6027
> In Australia (02) 6927 6027
> Mobile 0412 11 61 57
>
>
>
>
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