The strawbale shed is moving along in spite of the Coronavirus shutdown.
After doing the rough grading in November of last year, I focused on other tasks until early April when I returned to this project to start on the foundation. My Dad put in a lot of hours assisting me and was a huge help! We laid out the forms, leveled them, installed the rebar, and finally poured the concrete in early May.
My brother and Mom came out to help with the concrete pour and made the job go smoother. Unfortunately concrete went off quickly in the hot sun even with 1% retarder, so it doesn’t have a flawless finish. The inside portions finished up well enough though.
Finishing the pad 
The concrete crew was a big help!
After curing we spent three weekends in late-May and early June laying the block retaining wall for the back. For the back of the retaining wall, we used double 66’s (8 x 12 x 16) blocks set perpendicular in the wall. This way, the wall will be wide enough for the strawbale walls that will rest on top of it.
There are three courses of horizontal #4 bar that run the complete length of the wall. A #3 bar passes vertically down thru the outside cavity of each block to the bottom of the wall where it meets and and is spliced with a #3 bar coming up from the foundation (~20″ overlap). The finished wall will be incredibly strong!
Setting the blocks was a steep learning curve but the results were excellent. In the end, we were setting about 6 double blocks per hour. Not only are the double blocks heavy, but they are also more difficult to set perpendicular. The single 88 blocks set much faster – probably 10 or so per hour. Still not fast but it takes a lot of skill to do well. Overall, I’m glad this portion of the build is behind me.
I’ve been working on many little details on the inside and the framing over the last month. It’s really starting to come along, although it will be a bit more complex than I initially anticipated! Thinking thru where the “utility” lines need to run and the framing beforehand will be worth it, though.
