Wanna see how I hope to knock $27K off my Earthship’s roof?
Can you glue straw to anything?
Regular Earthships use 2 layers of 4 inch Poly Iso Insulation, tongue and groove decking and metal roofing. This method costs well over $8 per square foot in materials.
If my experiment works – this straw bale roof will perform about as well and cost about $3.50. I built sample to evaluate if the model would sturdy enough to pass engineering muster, FYI – Crown Jade Engineering, really understands advanced building and my quest for economy.
This experiment started with a trip to Home Depot and the old feed store to see if I could bond planks to straw to metal roofing.
2 comments
Did you get approval to use the dry straw bale sandwich roofing?
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No – although I discussed it with my engineer who would have signed off. If you’re doing something like this you will want to conscript a good engineer. He’s the one who can get the “building departments” to go along with innovation. I can put you in touch if you want. In my case I scored a tractor trailer load of recycled poly-iso insulation from a deconstructed casino in Vegas. Ease of assembly and great R value had the roof on and insulated in about 5 days at about $5 per square foot in materials. I think the whole 4000 sq ft roof cost around $17K in materials.