Talk:Straw bale

And what is a straw bale?

Ref to plastered walls
Some clarification needed to the sentence

"Because bales are tightly compressed, the final plastered walls offer excellent thermal mass, good structural strength, and low flammability."

Straw bales are sometimes used as structural elements to build load-bearing walls, in which case they are plastered; other times, the bales are simply inserted into post-and-beam walls, in which case they might be finished with drywall, siding, etc. I'm no builder myself, but if I've understood correctly, I think it's the bales themselves that have good thermal mass etc.; they don't necessarily have to be plastered to have that effect. So perhaps the sentence could read

"Because bales are tightly compressed, they offer..." or "Because bales are tightly compressed, walls in which they are used offer..."

Thoughts? Wordie 16:04, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Round bales illus should be replaced
A better picture of straw bales is needed. Round bales are not constructive to article:
 * 1) Straw bale construction uses a traditional block bale shape.
 * 2) Those look to be hay bales - too green to use for construction. -- Paleorthid 12:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Difference Between Hay and Straw
Hay is generally of greener crop material and suited for animal feed. Alfalfa and a large number of prairie or cultivated grasses might be harvested and baled--all known as "hay." Straw is commonly the dried, often yellowish or tan, stalks of harvested (grain seeds have been removed) grain crops (The soda straw nomenclature, no doubt, comes from the hollow center of individual plants, which is typical of wheat, rye, barley, and oats.) The diameter of individual straws would never exceed 1/4 of an inch. The hollowness, or the airspaces, is what creates the desirable insulating value. For purposes of construction insulating value, it might be useful to consider a straw bale to a similar volume of plastic bubble-pack. However, a wall of stacked straw bales has considerable greater mass and load carrying capacity. A house sized rectangular shaped wall of straw bales (around 8 feet hight) has strength great enough to support a ceiling and roof assembly. Homebuilding 207.178.98.32 (talk) 02:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)