In 1999 I was asked by Dorothy Redreau to assist in the design and construction of a loadbearing Strawbale house in Denmark, WA. Dorothy already had a design on paper, so not much more than fine tuning and drafting was needed. I ran the plans through my structural engineer Tim Fisher, who approved them with very little modification. They were then submitted to the Shire of Denmark who quite happily approved them. A local builder by the name of John Williamson was contracted for the project. This of course all sounds very simple, and I guess in the final analysis it was in principle, but needless to say the process had its fair share of hiccups and mishaps. Part of this was due to the long distance dealings between myself and Dorothy, which tended to slow things down a bit, and also the fact that I was new to dealing with a project of this size. At times it seemed quite daunting, especially considering the budget that was at stake. There were a few sleepless nights!The house was a basic rectangle of about 130 square metres perched on a concrete slab built up on a sharply sloping block. The internal walls were brick, and rendered the same as the bales. The roof was split level along the length of the house, and clad in curved Colourbond. The windows were aluminium framed, made to measure after the walls were done. The window and door frames were milled up out of local Karri, as was the inverted "T" top-plate. The Gripple and fencing wire tensioning system was used to tie the whole structure together. |
So it was in November 1999 Dave and I found ourselves in Denmark. Of course Denmark in spring is notorious for its rain, but the weather gods smiled upon us and left us reasonably alone. Mind you we still had to spend time each day tarping and untarping the walls to protect them, and one night a strong wind knocked one of the walls out of shape. No harm was done though, and the damage was easily repaired. The wall raising was straightforward enough, and with an average of six people on site at a time, the job was accomplished in three and a half days. This included all the timber work and the initial tensioning, and all the tarping and untarping. John Williamson knocked up the timber work, and demonstrated his overall skills as a builder. Although this was the first time he had been involved in a loadbearing project, he was as cool as a cucumber throughout, and proved valuable as a steadying influence. Nothing fazed him - every problem dealt with calmly.Unfortunately due to commitments that Dave had back in Perth, we had to bale out directly after the walls were up, and I haven't been able to get back since to see the final result. However Dorothy and her partner Simon moved into their house in February or March 2000, and finished off the fitting out inside. They had given themselves much of that work to cut costs. John took my suggestion of putting the roof on before rendering, and this helped speed up the settling and tensioning of the bales, and protected the walls and the renderers from the elements. Due to time constraints and the fact that their plasterer was not familiar with lime renders, they rendered the walls in a cement based render. This led to some initial problems of cracking, but over time these are being overcome. All in all the house was a success, and Dorothy and Simon are very happy with it. I have promised myself that one of these days I'll get back down there and catch up with it, and get some more photos. Denmark itself is quite a special little town, so it will be well worth the effort. |