Studio made of straw

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:33 am

Hello eveyrone,

I intend to soundproof my garage using bales of straw. Straw is cheap and has good building and sound absorbing properties.

Please see this thread, there are 3D plans there:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6603

You will need a copy of google sketchup to view them. Its free and you can get it here:

http://sketchup.google.com/download.html

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:01 am

If you can swing the extra cost, I hear that Ziplock™ baggies full of gasoline are better for absorbing sound.

I predict.........death in a horrible fire. Shocked

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:00 am

If the big, bad wolf comes, run directly to the studio made of bricks. don't bother stopping at the one made of sticks.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:50 pm

Reggie wrote:

If you can swing the extra cost, I hear that Ziplock™ baggies full of gasoline are better for absorbing sound.

I predict.........death in a horrible fire. Shocked

I have two brother in laws who are retired firemen. One moved from Santa Cruz to Nebraska. He built a barn out of hay bails. The outside and inside is covered with stucco. The two brothers said that this construction is inherently fireproof. I also saw a special on PBS where they were evaluating different types of fireproofing and stucco covered straw was the outright winner.

Sometimes what seems obvious ain't.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:44 pm

Aha, I failed to read the part about the plaster. I dunno, could be cool I guess. Or at least different. Sounds like a pain the the butt though.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:36 pm

Reggie wrote:

Aha, I failed to read the part about the plaster. I dunno, could be cool I guess. Or at least different. Sounds like a pain the the butt though.

I am not sure he mentioned the plaster either. This works great when you are nebraska cold and have lotsa bales of straw. The bales work wonderfully as thermal insulation, especially if you stack them long ways. He ties them together with rebar and has a post mounted metal roof.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:23 pm

there is a company in Quebec called Sonopan that makes sound insulation out of compressed hay. www.sonopan.com it's great stuff exept that it sheds little green hay particle all over everything it touches. I have seen it used also for absorbtion pads instead of fiberglass. they sell 4'X8' sheets for $20 canadian at home depot. i plan to spend about $100 and make four giant pads for my walls and noisy window and hopefully take a high powered rifle to my reflection issues.

-matt

p.s. Wilco came to town Monday! They made love to my eardrums and restored my faith in modern music.

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:48 pm

Didn't any of you guys grow up on a farm? I spent too many hours of my youth using a pitch fork on "used" straw to be comfortable with this.
Don't you know that the farm boys can see you city boys a mile away. If they offer to take you cow tipping after the first 100 square feet of acoustic hay, just watch out. Good luck to all.

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:19 pm

First, to clarify, hay is feed and is much more expensive than straw, so I doubt that anyone is making insulation out of hay. City clickers!

If you've ever been in a hay loft full of either hay or straw, one thing you'd note, other then the fact that you are hot and itchy, is that it is very dead sonically. Of course, we are talking about many cubic meters and tons of the stuff.

In terms of using it in walls, the fire concern is valid. I would have at least two main concerns in using unprocessed straw. First if any moisture gets into straw it can heat up through the subsequent bacterial and mold action, resulting in spontaneous combustion.

http://www.equineguelph.ca/news/haycombustion.pdf

Its not just a theory, it happened to our neighbour's stack when I was a kid - luckily it was placed far away from any buildings.

Secondly, if the stuff is dry and there is a great deal of dust coming off, the dust is also combustible. Get the right mixture with air and you have a very explosive combination. This happened occasional in grain elevators.

Anyway, the material should be at least treated to prevent either of these two potential fire hazards.

On an earlier post I had suggested using bales of used clothing - which may have the same risk in terms of moisture, though to a lesser extent if you use only synthetics. You can pick them up for about 8 cents a pound. Having worked with both, clothing would be my first option if you want to go this route.

Oh, one last thing. Mice and rats just love straw and rags. The make nice soft, safe homes for their infants.

Personally, after all considerations, I bit the bullet and built mine out of, gulp, fiber glass and drywall.

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 4:18 pm

Straw bale building is an accepted method of building everything from barns to high-dollar, multi-story homes. Do a google on the topic. Its extremely fireproof, incredibly insulative (thermally and sonically), and does NOT attract mice and insects. Straw has no nutritional value for such critters. The plaster helps in all these aspects as well. I've been making long-range plans to build a straw bale studio myself. I don't know how sonically "dead" the rooms will be, but I think it would be interesting to have to add reflective surfaces instead of absorption to the room. I don't think you're crazy, soapdodger! ANDY

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:02 pm

drumist69 wrote:

Straw bale building is an accepted method of building everything from barns to high-dollar, multi-story homes. Do a google on the topic. Its extremely fireproof, incredibly insulative (thermally and sonically), and does NOT attract mice and insects. Straw has no nutritional value for such critters. The plaster helps in all these aspects as well. I've been making long-range plans to build a straw bale studio myself. I don't know how sonically "dead" the rooms will be, but I think it would be interesting to have to add reflective surfaces instead of absorption to the room. I don't think you're crazy, soapdodger! ANDY

Andy,

you're right it is acceptable - however - it cannot be left exposed - because then it would be highly flammable (not to mention the problems related to possibly getting weet and introducing spontaneous combustion to the process (yes that claim is very VERY real)

Once you finish the inside and outside faces with stucco/plaser - then it will no longer act as an acoustic treatment - you will have to treat the space the same as with any other construction.

But - I would guess (just a gut feeling seeing as I have never seen any iso tests performed on the product) that it would give you pretty good sound isolation - and that's doing a lot in and of itself.

Sincerely,

Rod

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:04 pm

Rod,
While its true the bale walls should be plastered to prevent moisture damage, the plaster helps reduce flamability, but the compression of the straw into bales is the greatest factor in reducing flamability. Sure, a single piece of straw is highly flamable by itself, but if you hold a flame to a straw bale, the little ends of straw sticking out will burn, but the bale will not catch fire. The plaster serves to help here. In construction, once the walls are built up, a weed eater is used to remove the little strands sticking out, then plaster applied. This construction is nearly impossible to burn. Its great to see this conversation about a topic dear to my heart! ANDY

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:34 pm

....but what we're talking here is non-encapsulated straw, right?

I have seen(heard) a "room" about 8x8' interior made of straw bales, including the roof/ceiling, un-encapsulated, just stacked, with some boards used for roof support, one bale thick all around. It was free standing, in the center of a 15x25' room. It had one passageway so you could enter it. This was an "art piece" someone made in college.

If I stood outside this structure, with the opening on the other side, and someone was inside screaming as loud as they could, I was barely able to hear them at all. Impressive.

Fireproffing exposed bales can be done, but it's a pain in the.....neck.
Here is a flameproofing product. See if it is worth the effort.

http://www.rosco.com/us/scenic/flamex_w40.asp
---------------
Here is an excerpt about using it on hay bales

"Hay can be effectively treated with W40. However, it is necessary to insure that all strands of hay have been treated. As it is often not practical to immerse full bales, it is recommended that bales be separated into smaller sections, immersed and treated individually and then assembled back into bale form. "
-------------
Also look at the "MSDS" sheet. That may tell you what chemicals you are bringing into the studio, and possibly bringing into yourself. Look at the top of the sheet, next to "Health", it's got a "1"...so this product is not too hazardous.
http://www.rosco.com/includes/technotes/msds/scenic/FLAMEW40.pdf

=RR=

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 6:31 pm

drumist69 wrote:

but the compression of the straw into bales is the greatest factor in reducing flamability.

Andy - it is also this compression that causes the greatest threat should the bales become wet (which is why they ust be fully encapsulated).

A wet bale begins to decompose on the inside if it gets wet - and a by product of decomposition is heat - and a compressed bale does not allow the heat to escape - and it builds to the point of spontaneous combustion -and then you have a problem.

Trust me - compressed bales burn like crazy once they get going - there's a lot of fuel there - and there are thousand of barns that have burned down becauee of wet bales being packed into the hay lofts.

This is not a myth - it happens and is well documented.

Rod

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 7:09 pm

redrabbit wrote:

....Fireproffing exposed bales can be done, but it's a pain in the.....neck.

Red,

pain in the neck doesn't even begin to describe it - what about the expense -

At 40 bucks a gallon - and I can see a bale of hay eating up quite a few gallons of product - it just got real REAL expensive.........

If you get straw bales for 5 bucks a pop- and then 80 bucks apiece to protect them - getting each 6.5 s.f. of wall space runs you around 13.07 per square foot of wall face -

Now there is some big bucks...........

Why in the world would anyone want to do this when standard construction is so much cheaper for the same results?

Rod

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