Repair work on Straw bale buildings.

The stained wall

I went to see a customer of mine last month who, for the first time since building his Straw Bale house by the sea in Helsinki 14 years ago has had a leak. This happened in his kitchen, just over the door and left a kind of brown damp stain on the lime plaster finish. These stains were also appearing around his windows on other parts of the house. So after investigating and trying to find the cause for the leak, and discussing the problem with him we came to the conclusion that it was because he had changed the roof tiles about 2 years ago and the new tiles where not put on with great care.

Just over the door

Icicles outside the doors

Close up

Snow melting into the roof

Not good

Let me explain a little more!

The type of tiles he originally he had were clay tiles called Wienerberger which are from Estonia. These are an excellent robust quality clay tile and are normally of very high quality, but my customer was unlucky that he had gotten a bad batch when he first built the house. They lasted for about 6-7 years before decaying on his roof as the where burned to quickly when first made. He then contacted the manufacturer who replaced them under the warranty. Now here is where the problem seems to have started! When the building was first built it was built by a very good team of Straw bale builders who new what to do when covering and tiling the roof, therefore there were no leakage problems in the first years of the houses life. Within one year of the tiles being changed there came a leak, because the roofers were not accustomed to working on a Straw bale house and did not take into consideration that an open gap would cause so much damage. So after checking the roof I noticed that in the spot over where the leak was there were big gaps between the tiles and battens, where melting snow was just flowing in and thus making its way into the bales.

Gap between tile and battens. Needs to be closed!

In the other parts of the house, around the windows, it was not so much the roofers fault as the natures. This house is surrounded by beautiful tall old pine trees which tend to lose there pines straight down onto the roof, therefore blocking up all the little channels and rain pipes which normally leave the rain water and melting snow water away from the window areas. These were totally blocked and needed to be cleaned regularly.

Window details with their channels and pines everywhere

Solutions:
We will solve these problems by repairing the damaged wooden battens under the tiles, replacing the metal cladding between the joining of two roofs with a more efficient model which covers the holes up and by putting copper cladding over the area where these holes are. Also by keeping the roof and around the windows cleaned regularly. We will then re-coat the stained walls inside with white wash and wait until the spring to see does the brown discoloring come back, in which case we will then open this area up from the inside and check the conditions of the bales and repair them, and add new plaster.

Have you had any problems on your Straw bale home that needed repair. Why not comment on what you had to do or send me some info. on how you did it and I can post it here. Its good for all Straw balers out there to know and learn about what to do if there is a problem..