STRAP UPDATE Number 1

Subject: STRAP Update Date sent: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:35:14

Hi All,

Thanks for your patience. The proliferation of groups, topics, and posts has kept me from responding til now. I'll try to put us all on even ground.

STRAP is an electronic list or people willing to periodically come together to help each other build strawbale houses. The list is national, but the focus is regional, regions being roughly defined as a 150 or 200 mile radius from the house being raised. As such, regionalboundaries are defined by the location of the house rather than by a set, arbitrary decision.

The advantage to home owner/builders is an (increasingly) knowledgeable volunteer labor group. Advantages to the volunteers is the gaining of SB knowledge and the likelihood that volunteers will be available when their own house is raised.

The goal is the raising of walls and roof of a small (800-1000 square foot SB house in a two day weekend. Icing on the cake would be the completion of some stucco work. This is often termed "roughing in" the structure, and represents attainment of the building stage where the house is up and under cover from rain, and that most of the work requiring more than one person (the hard stuff) has been completed. This goal is possible if several conditions are satisfied:

1) The owner/builder must have all necessary materials on site. Other than the vagaries of weather, this is the single most important necessity of the weekend. Materials and parts requiring ordering lead times should have a couple extra weeks added for padding, and alternative sourcing should be arranged. Materials would include, but not be limited to : enough straw bales; prebuilt window and door bucks; prebuilt corners (if necessary); prebuilt box beam sections; trusses; lumber for purlins, false rafters, barges, headers, and bracing; steel stucco mesh; stucco netting; slaked lime and stucco sand; framing and duplex nails; roof tie-downs (whether threaded rod, plastic strap, Gripples, or whatever has been chosen); roofing materials (shingles or steel roofing). And don't forget a supply of electricity. All these parts wold normally be needed for construction. What is different is that tey all be present at one time for a STRAP project.

2) The foundation must be ready (and cured, if it is concrete) for the stacking of bales. This readiness probably includes any bolted-down lumber wall base plates, if those are to be used.

3) Window and door bucks (with internal braces) must be built and ready to insert into the SB walls as the grow.

4) Assuming a day weekend, incoming house-raiser STRAP people must arrive Friday nite or Saturday morning early enough to attend the organizational meeting. This meeting is very important as it acquaints people with the site, location of materials, tools, parking, food, water, first aid, and restroom sources, as well as a quick overview of the various methods that will be used. This allows us all to work as a team. People who arrive late will fragment the work effort when the interrupt workers who already know this information. If a significant portion of the work party knows it will arrive only at 10 AM on Saturday, a second meeting might be run for them, but a work slowdown effect is predictable and likely to prevent the goal from being reached.

5) The owner/builder should provide parking areas; rest rooms; wash-up areas; water, coffee, tea, etc; and a camping area for those who arrive Friday nite. Ideally, the owner should also provide food for the group, ie: breakfast, lunch, and dinner for both Saturday and Sunday. The model is of welcoming honored guests into your home. Food costs are relatively low for the benefits realized, the group's work effort would be minimally impacted by lunch breaks, and mealtime can more easily be a shared event. Workers shouldn't have to worry about cooking food too, though one possibility is that one of the provides the organization and labor for food service. Total costs for the above should not exceed $500. Provisions for childcare should be made (either a locally hired "sitter" or a volunteer from the group). If the owner really wants to treat his guests as humans, some temporary (if rudimentary) shower facilities would be a nice touch. And if the owner wishes to be truely go down in SB history as an extraordinary host, a temporary sweat lodge or sauna would probably do the trick.

6) If needed, the owner/builder should arrange/pay for a SB expert to be present onsite. This expert may be active in daily organization, or may simply be a ready resource for questions which arise.

7) Volunteers should expect to have a full day on Saturday, working from 8AM til 5PM. Sunday's day will be somewhat shorter, starting at 8 AM and ending about 4 pm, leaving time for a little celebration, dinner, and travel time home for people.

8) In preparation for the weekend (this means well the weekend, the owner/builder/organizer should ensure that all people coming receive:

A) good directions to the site; this means getting in the car and driving the route, measuring distances, confirming road signs and landmarks, and providing redundancy in the directions (miles, landmarks, terrain features, directions [N, S, E, W]). I have personally wasted waaay too much time trying to follow directions to underestimate the importance of this information. Just because the road home seems simple to the owner does not make it so.

B) A list of desired tools to bring, ie: hammers, 2 pound sledge hammers, tool belts, tape measures, accurate 4' levels, water jugs.

C) Any written information that might aid or facilitate efficient coalescence of the work team.

9) The workers must keep the goal in mind. The shared goal is the house rough-in. We don't have to work outselves to death to reach this goal, but we need to stay focused.

10) The weekend should be as well as productive. To this end, music fit for dancing on Saturday and night would be a nice touch. This might be a local (unplugged) band, or it might simply be a boombox with tapes.

Organization is the key to STRAP. With organization, we can accomplish a lot. To paraphrase a movie line: If they all come together, they will build.

I've saved the best for last, but only in thumbnail form as this is already too long. There have been positive conversations about a method by which STRAP people can obtain some financing for their homes. This originally took the form of the STRAP members contributing small amounts of money (ie $30) per month for, say, 3 months prior to the build date. Thirty members doing this would produce about $3000, or, in my book, about 10% of the total cost of the home's materials. The purpose of this was to reduce the financial "hump' that owners face at startup. While this is a distinct possibility, another also exists: low interest loans from interested parties that in some way match the group's contributions, or possibly are not tied to any group contributions. I will address this in further detail in another e-mail that speaks to the issue of cost per square foot goals and financing.

Jim