Strawberry House, Two Walls Up !!!

First the east wall went up, it is made of slip straw also called light straw clay. It is straw which gets tossed with a clay slip {clay soaked in water then whipped up smooth and quite wet, the consistency of heavy cream}, until it is very lightly covered. Slip is poured onto it then it gets tossed with pitch forks and more slip is added as needed. Then it is packed into forms, but not packed too tightly so the straw all compresses, you want air in the straws for insulation. In the pictures Liz is pouring and Brent is tossing.


The second wall that went up was strawbale. It is the north wall and strawbale is good for that since it is extra insulating the north won't get sun to warm it up. Bales are stacked on each other and tied to thin boards that go up and down to keep them in place, there are also metal strips going at a diagonal for structural support. Then a plaster is put on them to protect them. The first layer if plaster was just started. The gap in the strawbale wall will be filled in later during a workshop, also they need to get the window that will be up in it before it goes up, or at least know how big it will be.

I took photos of the whole house and had the computer stitch them together into one, it makes things looked curved that are not, the house is a rectangle and the boards up are straight, more or less. As you can see the west wall is starting to be framed too, it will be slip straw and should get worked on this weekend during the work party.