straw bale home

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lat1

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i've been asked by a friends friend to wire his 1300 ft3 strawbale home. from what i've heard its a nasty dirty, dusty job. what are the wiring methods? jam nmb into the straw to secure it? how do you secure device boxes? any other reccomendations are welcome. we don't really need the work, so if its a huge hassle i can just turn it down. thanx
 
mdshunk

mdshunk

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If I was to wire one, I'd probably push to use either UF or ENT. Whatever you do, take pictures!

I would certainly consider cable jammed into the straw bale both supported and secured. Straw bales are pretty dense.
 
ultramegabob

ultramegabob

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Indiana
mdshunk said:
If I was to wire one, I'd probably push to use either UF or ENT. Whatever you do, take pictures!

I would certainly consider cable jammed into the straw bale both supported and secured. Straw bales are pretty dense.
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I have never done it, but I would probley go with ENT
 
mdshunk

mdshunk

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Somebody's going to Link to it eventually, but I can't find the site right now. There was once a tripod user site with lots of pictures of wiring a straw bale home. To support the boxes, they hammered in a pointed 2x4 straight into the straw bale, behind each box location. The box was screwed into the end of that 2x4 then. I suppose the finish plaster material locked the boxes into place really good then.
 
ultramegabob

ultramegabob

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Location
Indiana
mdshunk said:
Somebody's going to Link to it eventually, but I can't find the site right now. There was once a tripod user site with lots of pictures of wiring a straw bale home. To support the boxes, they hammered in a pointed 2x4 straight into the straw bale, behind each box location. The box was screwed into the end of that 2x4 then. I suppose the finish plaster material locked the boxes into place really good then.
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is this the site?

http://www.strawhousemarket.com/html/how-to.htm
 
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nakulak

Senior Member
why build a straw bale home, mud hut, or any other such structure, only to ruin it with power, telephone, cable, stray emf, rfi and magnetic flux etc etc. A good straw bale home should never have power or plumbing (jmsho)
 
electricalperson

electricalperson

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massachusetts
thats pretty interesting i never heard of a straw bail house. i take it the straw is a pretty good insulator. probably something that has to do with being green now a days
 
hockeyoligist2

hockeyoligist2

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close to greenville sc
electricalperson said:
thats pretty interesting i never heard of a straw bail house. i take it the straw is a pretty good insulator. probably something that has to do with being green now a days
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It has been around a long time, I guess you don't read MEN? (mother earth news) ;)

I can't remember exactly, but I'm thinking late sixties or early seventy's they had several feature story's on it.

I was kinda "in to it", not for the green factor, but the "cheap" factor!

I built an outbuilding with "firewood" after reading an article in MEN. It is about 30 years old now, still strong and still standing! I never ran any power to it, I store my boat in it.
 
yanici

yanici

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Atlantis
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Old Retired Master/Journeyman Electrician
Apparently everone hasn't read about the three little pigs and how they built their houses. Sheesh!!:grin:
 
mdshunk

mdshunk

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yanici said:
Apparently everone hasn't read about the three little pigs and how they built their houses. Sheesh!!:grin:
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No kidding. It seems like you'd almost be guaranteed to have bugs, unless you specially heavily doped your straw bales with borax. Maybe they do that anyhow? I know the pest control guys can "prewire" a house with little thin tubes all over the place inside the walls to a manifold on the side of the house. They just come by every once in a while to "fill 'er up".
 
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crossman

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Location
Southeast Texas
Marc, I'm with ya! Before I posted the 382 Nonmetallic extensions, I was looking for Underplaster Extensions... but couldn't find it. I remember it used to be in there in the 1980s when I was an apprentice. I guess it got removed somewhere through the years.
 
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