Rice hulls allow you to build a more conventional modified stick frame . It might make sense even fairly far north. They are basically free which would offset a lot of the trucking and the reduced labor cost would as well. They grow rice in Missouri . The hulls weigh about 9 lb per cubic foot so for a 12 inch thick envelope around a 1400 square foot house , ceiling floor and walls it would take one full truckload . Actually not that much because of door and window cutouts.
I am assuming 4000 cubic feet per load including the weight of bags and pallets. So even a very large house say 750 miles north of Memphis , assuming 500.00 to purchase and 2 dollars a mile to truck it, it would cost 2000 for a small house and 4000 for a fairly large one. It may be possible to get a better rate than that now.
Considering the 2 to 3 dollar a bale and all that plastering and extra carpentry for the plates, drying and settling time , etc. I think it would be close .
I am going to try to cut a deal with one of the mills around Memphis to bag it for me.
Here is the info.
http://www.esrla.com/shotgun/frame.htm
At 12:08 AM 11/20/2008 -0500, you wrote:
I don't know much about rice because it is a geographically availability thing. Up in the North Straw makes sense down south Rice likely makes sense
Nick
I teach folks how attract money online.
www.qncommunications.com
From: papercreters@yahoogroups.com [mailto:papercreters@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Forrest Charnock
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 11:47 PM
To: papercreters@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [papercreters] sources
I am no sure why that would be, you still would have most of the bale insulating. You are going to mud the outside anyway. Personally I see no advantage at all in straw over rice hulls and the rice hull house is no problem meeting spec and goes up a lot faster, weeks faster.
At 03:52 PM 11/19/2008 -0500, you wrote:
That is an outdated method originally developed in Quebec but is no longer seen as useful. It cause frost bridging and defeats the r value of the wall.
Nick
I teach folks how attract money online.
www.qncommunications.com
From: papercreters@yahoogroups.com [mailto:papercreters@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Forrest Charnock
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 1:26 PM
To: papercreters@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [papercreters] sources
I think if I was going to build with straw I would float the bales in clay
slip and seal all for sides before bringing them to the site. It would add
weight during construction and possibly be a slight negative on r value but
it would almost eliminate the fire hazard.
The rice hulls sound like the way to go as meeting code is easy and they
almost won't burn.
I love the idea of papercrete but I need to learn more before I would
chance building a house that way.
