NATURAL BUILDING WORK PARTY! Learning opportunities for straw baling, light clay, and plastering starting now and continuing throughout September for our straw bale addition on Pender Island, BC.
It has been a rather unpredictable summer in terms of our building schedule, but we are finally at the point of putting the straw bales into the walls of our house. These things just always take longer, right?? We started off on Monday, August 21 with an enthusiastic group, gathering in the morning to check out the partial solar eclipse that was visible from this part of the continent, and then spending the rest of the day getting the order of operations sorted out.
Our method of placing the bales standing up in the columns created by the stud frame is different from what we did for the other half of the house, which was a timber frame structure with the straw bales stacked like bricks and secured with exterior vertical bamboo.
We would like to invite everyone who is interested in experiencing building with straw bales to come for a few hours, or a few days, to take part in a variety of jobs which will shift over the next few weeks as the work progresses. From this point onwards, there will be many tasks to complete, and while it will be difficult to schedule the type of work being done over this next time period, we would like to offer a general list of natural building components that we will be looking for help with:
- trimming, notching, sizing, and stacking bales
- stuffing
- light clay- we will be filling some areas
- clay slipping all the wall surfaces
- mixing and applying the first coat of plaster
light clay- filling the forms
Give us a shout and let us know when you can come and we will try our best to let you know what we will be doing. Or, let us know what you want to do, and we will contact you when that job will be happening as soon as we know. Things will be much quicker depending on the amount of help we have, but realistically, we also have to consider the cooling of the days as we get into the plastering part of things. The plaster needs to dry completely within a certain time frame… same for the light clay.
trimming and notching bales
This week, August 23 – 25, and August 27-31, we will be working to fill the walls and we are looking for extra help. Anyone that is interested in learning a different way of building with straw bale is welcome! We also have a lovely pond for swimming and will be providing snacks. If you are from off island, please send us a note of your interest and we can provide more details.
Inspirational Village 