Thread: Construction grade straw bails and sound insulation

G'day foosion,
I live in a straw bale house, and there is no "real thing" such as construction grade straw bales. If they have started grading them as such, then "they" are just "value adding" to an item that has been around for centuries.
This is a bad time to be buying straw bales, due to the past 10 yrs of drought, but believe me.....Straw bales is straw bales!

Fair point, but I must have been reading some American site, as there is a distinction made between straw bails that are loosely packed and ones that are more densley packed and hold more mass or some such thing.
Anyway....bad time and all that re the drought....but anyone got any ideas as to where I could buy them?
cheers

Originally Posted by foosion

Fair point, but I must have been reading some American site, as there is a distinction made between straw bails that are loosely packed and ones that are more densley packed and hold more mass or some such thing.
Anyway....bad time and all that re the drought....but anyone got any ideas as to where I could buy them?
cheers

hi i dont know where in melbourne you are but there is a place in plenty road preston i think its "barastock" they would have a website but we used to get it from here for the horses it was about $4.00 a bale not sure what it would be now though.good luck

Ummmm.......you'd be better off using something like Soundstop insulation (basically Rockwool) or some other acoustic insulation. Which you then cover using some of the acoustic grade plasterboard from Boral, BGC, CSR or LaFarge....

If you want a straw panel then something like a Durras Panel is the go http://www.ortech.com.au/eas/wall.html or a Solomit ceiling panel http://www.solomit.com.au/strawboard.htm

Of course, plain old wheat straw is an easy option (don't what ever you do buy lucerne or pea straw - it isn't straw and will compost in your wall) but you might find it hard to get - what you are after is bedding straw not feed straw.

And the mob that Bingo is talking about is Barastoc, a stockfeed company.

Hi,

I am a hay producer, and straw is straw.
The most important thing is the bales are densely packed so they stack well and don't collapse from the weight of the bales above them.

On where to buy them. Try in the rural based newspapers, eg The Land in NSW(direct from the producer,no middleman)

Good luck.

I've only designed 2 straw bale homes so I'm far from an expert, but the type of straw used is important. Stay away from 'grass hay' type material. Very stalky bales are what you need for insulation etc.
Check out the blog at strawbales.com.au

The idea with strawbales is that you need to keep out fire, moisture and air... otherwise they will rot or combust.

Process is like this:
Lay bales 3 rows high,, piece of re-bar or similiar on top of the top row, wrap wire around top to bottom, and twitch down the rows nice and tight.
Lay chicken wire on each side of the 'wall', and then render.

Due to the compression of the bales and the render, oxygen can't get in... hence providing fire retardant... render also adds moisture proofing.

Render negates the need for the internal stud wall, although rendering the side against the shed wall will mean you'll need to uremove the shed wall.

no render = massive fire hazard.

If you are in Melbourne, I'd imagine the insurance aspects will be a nightmare, also you will loose floor space to the tune of the 600mm or so width of the bale and render.
I think I paid about $10 a bale for straw last time I bought it... reckon rockwool might be cheaper.

Are you sure that Soundstop installation, as suggested, wouldn't be quicker and cheaper?

Just to add my 2 bobs worth, I would imagine it would be a haven for rodents, i.e rats, mice and possums.

There was a companyu in Bendigo called STRAMIT that made this product for houses.

Dont know what happened to them or if they even still exist.

Carted truckloads to Brisbane in the 80's

Thanks for all those replies. They have made me re-think the straw bail idea. And Im thinking about a stud wall and lowering the ceiling. I'm going to post a new question as another thread.
cheers for the input