Green Roof Straw Bale Building in South Wales

[alun]

Hello all, I just joined this forum, very impressed with the positive attitudes on here! Very inspirational.
I am currently in the planning stages of building a small studio at the back of my garden for my drums & hobbies to get some space in my house! I'm looking for volunteers for the coming year and also some advice.

The building itself will be straw bale infill walls, standing on rammed tyre foundations. The roof will be a green roof, which is going to be mono pitch, 6m front to back, and 8-9m wide.

I'm going to build the roof first, so that I have shelter and time to do the straw bale without too much concern about light rain.
My current question is do you think that 6 or 8 telegraph poles will be enough to support the roof, or does anyone have any suggestions about suitable (recycled if possible) materials to use for the posts & roof?

My plans for the building are at http://www.inglepingle.co.uk and if you want to sign up for volunteer newsletters, please go to the newsletter page and enter your details.

Many thanks!
Alun

[boboff]

Wow like it!

I subscribed, as I would like to take a longer look at your blog.

This looks like a cow shed "Devon Barn" and I have seen a few locally put up with telegraph poles at 5ft spacings ish, I would say that in compressing this is not the limiting factor but the size of the beams you bridge these gaps with, so the closer together the smaller the joists will need to be to support the weight of the roof. The size of you roofing sheets will also be a factor, as you really want them able to be centred on the joists I reckon. So thats it really, the posts not all that important, it's the joists that will bow and bend if you get it wrong... which I am sure you won't.

best of luck.

[alun]

Thanks boboff, I am pretty excited about its development. The subsription won't update with posts, but I'll start sending separate emails out in February/March on the progress, so you will be kept up to date on the build, no problem!

Yes I think the posts should be OK, I'm also probably going to keep them dry by building the bales around them, so they will last indefinitely, and make a feature inside. I just have little experience with wood working, so I'm spending the winter reading and learning!

[alun]

In an update to this, I have a few dates for March and April I will be working on the site. Keep updated on the website. The post for dates is here
http://bit.ly/yoqUle

Thanks!
Alun

[grahamhobbs]

Alun, nice project. What rafters are you supporting the roof with? 6m is quite a large span, especially with a heavy green roof.

[alun]

I'm currently arranging a meeting with a structural engineer to figure this out - the span will be less than 6m as there will be an overhang either side probably 0.75m in length. I was looking at I-beams, but I'm waiting for this meeting to see if thats required. I'll be sure to post more on my blog in the next month when I know more.

[alun]

Hey all, I thought I'd bump this post as I'm doing some volunteering in June, so I wanted to see if anyone was interested, you can come along and learn some foundation building techniques.
I had a good volunteer weekend last week, and I'm going to do another one in early June (9th & 10th) to continue digging drainage and ramming tyre foundations for the building. If you are interested, message here or visit my website www.inglepingle.co.uk. Hopefully there will be plenty of us meeting to discuss ideas and good practice for green building!
Thanks!