Wanting to build an awning similar to a hoop coop using cattle panels. Anyone who has worked with ca

[Hholly]

Ken and I not only looked into it, but we joined the straw bale forum many years ago. We also took classes in alternative building at the local college. Ours is designed and we just know that for us it's absolutely perfect. But life got in the way of the building, as it does with so many other things. We haven't given up on the dream - just postponed it.

SB homes are in use all over the country. There are things that can be easily done to make them successful no matter where they are located. There are many of them in Washington State and Oregon, and if any places in the country know rain and moisture issues those would be the ones. Early settlers in the Sand Hill area of Nebraska used hay bales to build their homes and remarkably some of the them are still standing, despite missing roofs, clay slurry for surfacing, tornadoes, heavy snows, and being totally load bearing structures rather than the way most folks do them today. Modern straw bale houses are usually built with a frame and straw bale infill but many old school builders still prefer to build load bearing buildings. A straw bale grocery store in Glenrock, Wy, built in the 40s, is still open. There are a few homes in Cody, one in Greybull, and one in Powell, all within 50 miles of us here. And those are just the ones I know about and have seen and personally toured.

Okay, looks l like I hijacked another thread. <sigh> So let me pull myself back on topic by telling the OP that I think the cattle panel "awning" will work very well, and once the cattle panels are transported to the building site the hardest part is done!

No need to worry about hijacking, lol. I love watching where a thread will go when diverse people contribute. BTW, straw bale houses look so cool!

 

[microchick]

Thanks for the information Blooie.

We got on the cattle panel wagon years ago when our Australian Cattle dog proved to us that he could escape any fence we put in front of him by chewing his way through....except for cattle panels. They weren't too much of a problem for him either. He just climbed over those. We are almost glad he's a little older now and looks upon the challenge as costing too much energy.

 

[paintedChix]

The articles ive seen, say that the "rod" going thru them is a garden stake. The garden stakes in our stores weren't long enough to do that with for the sides of a building, though.

Since I'm using the cattle panel for support, I will use hay string run thru the bottles and tied off where the "run" is ending. Will then attach the bottles to the panels every so often I think. There have been some pics of some pretty awesome buildings done w/ plastic bottles.

 

[aart]

Don't understand the functional point of the bottle walls...they are not air tight so wouldn't hold warm air like greenhouse?

 

[paintedChix]

Some that I have seen are pretty airtight. Others use what isn't completely airtight and utilize that as their ventilation system rather than Doing additional ventilation systems.

I'm playing with keeping the bottle lines close/tight enough to make them shed water. It may not work, we'll see.

 

[Diannastarr]

o yeah i have seen this a few years back & all about this kind of building with bottles, from a site from Mexico, people are living in building made like this...!its all very kool indeed.. and worth doing but then again there are glass bottle houses the walls are made from all a wine type of bottles and mortar like adobe or the news paper & cement mixture called some thing like paper crete ,people have built building herein AZ from that kind of stuff, so the entire wall has colored glass lites in it the sun shines through...!

 

[Diannastarr]

Fyi, they make metal zip ties. Don't know how well they work, but I know my heavy duty plastic ones always break eventually.

http://www.harborfreight.com/12-in-stainless-steel-cable-ties-25-pk-69413.html

i agree eventually most plastic of any kind does eventually break , but the metal ones seem the better way to go to start with..!!! its the best idea..!