Building A Straw Bale Garage In Edmonton
Edmonton is in Alberta, Canada Got Microsoft IE "script" errors? Go here.

The Index

Content updated July 2, 2000.

Where Things Are

The garage is up and is being used. I have been fixing up the backyard landscaping and will post updated pictures and information this summer, I hope.

Rob Richards
July 2, 2000.

Where Things Were

We had a few hardy souls out. We stuccoed the inside and got a chunk of the outside brown coat done on June 12. There is still more work to do, and I will do it as I can round up a soul or two over the next week or so.

There are a couple of layers of stucco to go on and I can park my car there.

That was a goal of the garage, to park a car there. I have to admit that I am tempted to move into the garage, in the heat of the sun it is cool inside there. All the more reason to build a house. I have seen some photos of a "ballon" structure that allows two storey straw bale buildings! It is currently being done by Michael Bergeron in Montreal and should be nearing completeion.

There was good media coverage of this event. We were one of the stories (small=150K) (large=1.1M !!Outta of room - not included!) highlighted at the beginning of the news broadcast. The clip (small=266K) (large=2.2M) was well done. Of course the comment about hay and straw needs a bit of clarification: hay is tasty and cows and bugs like to eat it. And we did not use it. Straw is not tasty, has no calories and bugs and cows won't eat it. We. Used. Straw. We use straw in this garage. We like straw.

The following pix show myself preparing a stake to attach an electrical outlet, Dave trimming the straw to prepare for stucco and Mario mudding the west wall. The forth picture is the east wall of the garage, the scratch coat.

The StrawBale Garage Is Up!

It was a go! The weather was great all weekend long. We started with four of us around 9:30am and more people started showing up just after 10:00am. Saturday went very well, the walls were up in three hours, followed by some technical difficulties with the wire to compress the straw walls. Once that was mastered and a first round of some food it took 3 hours to get the roof up and sheeted!

You can drive by 10512 - 79 Avenue (near the Keg in Old Strathcona!) and see that the garage is up.

That days activities are under the Journal index, specifically the May 21+22 heading. ciao,
-rob

Main The Journal The TimeLine Financial Info Photo Gallery Miscellaneous Strawbale Links
This page last updated July, 2000.

1