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It is important that all wood surfaces be covered with roofing felt to separate them from the plaster. If you do not do this, the plaster will adhere to the wood and will be prone to extensive cracking as the wood dries and moves over time. a typical house has a lot of wood members that will need to be isolated so the process can be time consuming. It can also go quickly with a little planning and forethought. Here’s what I suggest. Figure out the major widths of the wood components that need to be covered with the felt. Add 4″ to that width for some overlap (I’ll tell you why in a minute). Now the roofing felt to the chop saw (use an old blade because the felt will gum it up terribly!)and cut the roll into smaller rolls matching the width you determined. Cut slowly to stop the felt from melting to itself rendering it useless. Now you have precut rolls of the size you need to move quickly through the structure. These rolls are not only cut to size, but also easier to carry around the job site and up ladders if necessary.

Now, why did you add 4″ to the measurement of the wood members? When notching your bales, I always tell you to over cut the notch rather than under cut it. If you try and hit the notch size exactly, you will miss most of the time and the trimming of the notch in the bale is hard to accomplish well. This means the bales will be harder to get into place and the time you’ll spend trimming, fine tuning and installing your bales will be huge. If you over cut the notches, you will speed the process immensely; however, you may end up with a bunch of 1″ gaps on the outside of the structure against the posts and beams where the over cut took place. You could stuff these, but it is hard (because they are only a few inches deep) and very time consuming (now you’re back to where you started with lost time!). The extra roofing felt (4″ over cut) acts as backing for the plaster as long as there is no more than an inch or so of space behind the felt. The other 1-3 inches of felt laps onto the bale, bridging the gap. There is no significant affect on the R-Value of the wall and the process is sped up greatly. Again, the faster you can move through the baling process, the sooner you can get the bales protected with plaster.

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About the Author

Andrew Morison is a licensed contractor specializing 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 http://www.LearnStrawBale.com.

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