The stone walls are almost finished and the roof wooden structure ready to be installed. Yet, we have not finalized the installation details of the 25 centimetres of straw insulation.
It is rather frustrating to get that far into the construction and realize that neither the architect nor the thermal engineer have thought through the installation details of the insulation system they recommended.
- What are the details and specifications of the wood framing we need to hold the 25cm of straw in place?
- Can we place the straw right against the stone wall?
- If this is not recommended, do we have to leave an air space or install a vapour barrier?
- How is the 4cm-thick soil-based plaster supposed to hold onto the straw insulation?
- Do we need to plan for an air space or vapour barrier between the insulation and the final soil-based plaster?
- How to ensure the walls+insulation+plaster will breathe properly and we will not have condensation issues?
These are all questions whose answers we are still looking for.
If you know of anyone (professionals or individual home-owners) who have experience and history about stone walls and straw insulation, please let us know; we would like to hear from them.
It would be sad to have to change to a different insulation system after putting so much work into harvesting and storing the straw required to insulate the house.
We are excited, the construction is starting again!
The masons re-opened the site last week and started again to build where they had stopped just before the winter. They continued the stone work on the two pillars of the large bay window on the South West facade and are getting ready to continue erecting the South East wall, close to the road.
We poured a layer of small gravel (red volcanic stone) on top of the terrasse to protect the concrete from dents and chips that building stones and other heavy equipment may cause.
