Several people have written to me asking how to find the welded wire mesh I use on my bale homes. It is hard to find, no doubt, but it can be found, I promise. Unfortunately, I don’t have a long list of suppliers. All I have is my West coast supplier. If you have successfully found the material in your part of the world, please let us know where and save the rest of the SB folks out there some time and sweat!
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Here’s the name of the company who supplies my mesh. They will drop ship directly to your location which helps in the shipping costs; however, get all that you need at once because the shipping is not cheap and one big delivery will cost you less than two smaller ones.
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Flynn & Enslow Inc
www.flynnenslow.com
1530 17th St
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 863-5340
About the Author
Andrew Morison is a specialist in straw bale and green construction. He has shown thousands of people how to build their own straw bale projects through his comprehensive series of instructional straw bale, concrete foundation, and plastering DVDs. You can check these out at www.LearnStrawBale.com..
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April 27th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I just bought a book on using straw bales with timber frame homes. In the book they do not use any wire mesh to hold the clay plaster. They applied it directly to the straw bales. I have also been in contact with a timber frame company in colorado that use strawbales and they don’t use any wire mesh either. When using the bales as infill for your walls do you really need the wire mesh?? What do you suggest?? PS I just watched all three of your dvds and they answered a lot of other questions. Thanks HJM in salem, oregon
April 27th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Hi Heidi. The thing with not using mesh is that you need mesh around the windows and doors to shape, and it adds strength to the plaster. It is not required, but in my experience it is easier to use it and more productive to get a quality finish. Also, you can use the mesh as part of the shear engineering which is cool. That said, if you are hiring someone to build for you, the labor cost to use the mesh as a shear system is too high in my opinion and I prefer to use HardyFrames instead.
April 27th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
An interesting and thorough study done by the Canadian Mortgage and housing Corporation (CMHC) came to the following conclusion on the use of mesh on SB walls:
“Tenax mesh does not improve the compressive strength of straw bale walls with cement-lime plaster, and in fact may decrease the strength by affecting the plaster-straw bond and leading to premature local buckling of the plaster. The
mesh does, however, improve the ductility of the wall to lateral deflections after compressive failure has occurred.”
This extract is taken from a list of nine conclusions but is the only one that refers to the effect of mesh. In Canada tenax plastic mesh is used in preference to welded mesh.
A copy of the full report can probably be found somewhere on the CMHC website at: http://www.cmhc.ca. Or you can email me at: naturalbuilding@shaw.ca and I will send you the .pdf.
Regards, Steve
April 28th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Tractor Supply in Texas has all the welded wire you need!
April 28th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Thanks Charles!
and Thanks Steve. I have used Tenax before and it is great to work with: easy to cut and handle, no super sharp edges, etc.. It works well for shaping, although not as well as metal mesh. It is true that it does not improve compressive strength as it is mesh and plastic at that; however, the entire purpose of mesh in any application as a strengthening material is in tensile strength. This is true for mesh in plaster and rebar in concrete. Those materials are there to strengthen ONLY the tensile strength as the rigid material (plaster or concrete) effectively handles the compressive direction. Thus the improved value of the shear strength. The plastic picks up the tensile strain and holds against the shear forces. This is improved further if you use a WELDED wire mesh because it actually provides strength in both compressive and tensile directions due to the rigid welds. You can see the study that uses the welded wire mesh as the shear system at http://www.ecobuildnetwork.org under the straw bale testing page. It is called “In Plane Cyclic Tests of Plastered Straw Bale Wall Assemblies.”
May 5th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Hi Strawbalers out there,
We are building a post and beam strawbale in southern Washington about 90 minutes East of Portland. We have found a supplier of 2×2 welded wire mesh in Portland that will drop ship to us. Their price is very good also.
Contact info:
Pam Deswert
Oregon Wire Products
800-458-8344
503-255-5728 fax
If any one reading this would like to check out our project or lend a hand, feel free to contact us at:
gsobonya@sbcglobal.net
May 14th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Hi Andrew,have you ever considerated to import welded wire mesh fron China? Anping,China is the home town of wire and wire mesh,the good quality and competetive price will never disappoint you.
Contact info:
Ivy Lee
HEBEI DONGFANG HARDWARE AND WIRE MESH PRODUCTS CO.,LTD
Phone:86-010-64822786
Fax:86-010-64822937
E-mail:licc_ivy@yahoo.cn
June 17th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Hi, Andraw,
I am also a manufaturer in Anping China, and I agree with with Ivy above. There are hundreds of factories in Anping county that manufacturer various of wire mesh. Some of them have do this for more than 20 years and they have export experience(including our company). You can draw on their high quality products and good service.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards,
Shirley
Hebei Zhongsheng Metal Netting Co., Ltd
tel:86-311-85907276
fax:86-311-85907206
e-mail:sale1.wiremesh@yahoo.com
October 29th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Sorry Andrew…….one more time….what about using the 2×4 welded wire mesh? It’s so cheap and widely avialable. How about in a round srtucture with no lateral shear??
October 29th, 2009 at 11:25 am
OK I found that Lowe’s has access to 2×2 welded wire mesh in 5′x150′ rolls. What do you think?
October 29th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I think the 2×2 is better all around because it holds its shape better; however in a round structure, the 2×4 would be acceptable since the shear is not an issue.
April 21st, 2010 at 11:53 pm
If you have any need of the welded wire mesh, the loop tie wire, the baling wire or other wire products, you could contact with me anytime my MSN: jinjue099@hotmail.com
November 7th, 2011 at 7:58 am
We were able to get American made, U.S. steel, from Red Brand, http://redbrand.com/Products/OtherProducts/WeldedWire.aspx
The wire was ordered and delivered through Lowe’s. It took a while to find a sales rep. that knew how to place the special order. Depending on weather, we’ll be attaching wire mesh this week, 11/2011, Colorado.