Working against the weathers..

This is a post that I thought about while putting up our little love shack here in Finland and while working at the same time on rebuilding an old experimental Straw bale house that had very little work done to it after it was first built 15 years ago.

Building before we took it down.

15 years without any plaster

Was beginning to fall

After we were finished

So we thought to try and experiment with this idea and thought the "Love shack" would be the perfect building to work on as it is small and will not be used for living in, and did not need planning permission.

My question was, how far into the Autumn can we build in Finland and where is the cut off point?
Not everyone obviously would have this problem, depending on where you live, but here in the Nordics and parts of Eastern Europe we certainly do.
There are so many different weather conditions to consider such as the autumn rains, the winter snow and freezing, and the spring where you have up to 1.5m of melting snow, on top of the spring rains, and the moisture and damp that comes with this.

Love shack

First we covered it with Tarps.

Now with felt roof and tarps around the walls

From this one question comes many different questions, such as
1. How to store the bales?
2. What are the best ways of covering the bales when in the walls?
3. Can we plaster in the colder weathers?
4. How will the bales react through the freezing cold weather here without plaster?
5. Are the walls without plaster on them, strong enough to take the weight of serious amounts of snow?

I will try to answer these questions one by one.
1. How to store the bales?
We had the bales delivered at the end of September at the same time as they were delivered to the rebuilding project. My thoughts on this were that it was logistically smarter and I had the plan to start building within 2 weeks. I first put the bales on pallets and covered them lightly with tarps as we had a forecast of a lot of dry sunny weather. As soon as I realized that I was not going to get to the project that soon because I got held up with the other rebuilding project, then I covered them more thoroughly, with bigger heavier tarps and metal sheeting on top as a roof. This I thought was good enough as in the following weeks it rained and even snowed lightly and the temperature dropped a lot. It took me almost 1 month to get to the building and when we finally did we discovered that some of the tarps had stuck to the bales due to the freezing and luckily only 2 out of the 20 bales were damaged and could not be used.
So, I learnt never order the bales until you are sure you are building unless you have a proper place to store them. That storage should have a good enough roof over the bales with ample overhang and the bales should be well off the ground. Make sure that the site is well prepared. Disgard any bales that have become seriously water damaged.
2. What are the best ways of covering the bales when in the walls?
When we finally got the walls raised I knew the rains were coming so we covered them with tarps and I prayed they would not get too damaged. It rained a lot over the next few days and when we saw a break come in the weather we got our chance to put a roof on. Then we built out the tops of the wall plate by 10cm and let our tarps hang from there down so there is now an air gap between the Tarps and the Bales.
3. Can we plaster in the colder weathers?
Interesting question. I have seen it done but don't think it wise as the plaster has cracked a lot. Temperatures here in Finland can drop easily below -30 degrees and back up again to zero again in the space of 2 days. Not good for clay. It would be interesting to hear some more comments on this one??
4. How will the bales react through the freezing cold weather without plaster?
This I have found to be ok as the weather here is so dry in the winter and this has helped the bales to dry out properly after the rains.
5. Are the walls without plaster on them, strong enough to take the weight of serious amounts of snow?
Well, we have already had 60-70cm of snow fall in December and this has compressed the bales a little more but they are standing strong. I have had to clean this snow off the roof already as we know we can expect at least the same amount again over the coming months. I do not think this a problem for the bales to hold but would have liked to have plastered them for fire protection reasons and also because of the damp spring that I know will come, which means the bales will need to be aired and dried by the sun in the summer before plastering.
In conclusion:
Here in Finland I now feel that our window for building is from Spring when the snow has melted until the end of September and I would always recommend to plaster your walls at least with the first coat straight away after erecting them, whatever the climate in your country is. It will be interesting with this experiment how the Straw will react during the Spring months when we have damper weather. If the building that we rebuilt in the first pictures on this blog are anything to go by after lasting 15 years with no plaster on them, then I think they will be fine. Remember that this was an experiment. You should always plan and prepare you buildings very well and make sure you give yourself ample time to get everything finished. Don't take any unnecessary risks that would cause your building future damage.


I would love to hear other stories on peoples experiences with the conditions in their countries, and problems they have had due to the weather...