Patti Stouter sent me this news about raschel mesh from a supplier in Canada that works perfectly for the narrow rubble walls in her Totally Tubular design. She builds hyper-wattle — tubes of lightweight insulation — on top of the narrow rubble walls.
“The 18″ wide raschel got here last night and I tried it out today. It is strong enough to work with easily, none of my soil fell through (only a little dry sandy soil will fall through I think), and it seems to be a good size. It tamps to 12″ wide at 4″ high or 13″ wide at 3.5″ high. I think this is acceptable.
If I remember right this is $170 ($Canadian) for a 1000 m roll plus shipping. It’s called 18″ raschel mesh.”
Contact: Maurice Wilson, Bag Supplies Canada, Stratford, Ontario
1 519 271 5393
Update: Maurice just found out that the raschel mesh had been misunderstood. His supplier thought he wanted a flat length. So to get a tube, he’ll have to charge 237 $CN for each 1000m roll plus shipping.
We need to modify the price listed on the blog post. He’s offering UV resistant raschel mesh 18- 20″ wide.
If shipping is $60 each (a little low, but people will often buy 2 rolls for a modest house since 1 roll will build only 120 lf of 8′ high walls) then that will end up costing about $109 for a 10′ x 10′ room.
Calearth’s tubes plus barbed wire cost about $390 per 10′ x 10′ room.
18 x 30 bags bought at 30 cents each including shipping will cost with barbed wire about $137 per 10′ x 10′ room.
If someone uses misprinted bags for 20 cents each including shipping it will only cost $97 with barbed wire. But these will not be UV resistant.
So the raschel mesh is much quicker to build with, lighter to transport, UV resistant, and costs just 12% more than the cheapest non-UV bags that can be bought in the US. He’s ordering 20 rolls for the first shipment, so people may want to place their orders with maurice@bagsupplies.com.
Thanks for your inquiry. The price is $447.00 CN$ + shipping/taxes
14-16” x 3280’/roll
when filled 20” wide
FROM BAG SUPPLIES CANADA
Hello from Romania! I would like to know what would be better to use for a rectangular building ( workshop, storage room) PP bags or raschgel bags? I tried the search on the site but I could not find a comparison. Will I still need the wire in between the rows? The building would be 10mX5m and 2.8m high. And one more question if I may: the area has no seismic activity, no floods propbles so will I still need the buttresses or iron bars through the layers? If so ..how many? The area is a remote area so I don’t need to follow code but just to make sure it will not fall on me..ha! Thank you for the infos in the book and on this site.
Raschel mesh is faster, easier and lower cost for your situation. The plaster will bond better, etc.
I’ll leave the details of how much reinforcing is needed. Just play it by ear. Partly it depends on workmanship, wall length, size of windows and doors, etc. Long straight walls are the weakest. Keep the walls well tamped, level and vertical and less reinforcing is needed. If the wall feels a little shaky then add some rebar down through the center. It’s just common sense once you get into it.
Thank you. Here I can get 50cm by80 cm that’s about 19″ by 31″.
That will work. I prefer slightly longer bags about 34″ long that provide more overlap, but it’s not necessary.
Different brands obviously have different properties. Our 15″ mesh bags make 15″ wide walls exactly the same size as 18″ wide solid weave polypropylene bags. So our mesh bags stretch quite a bit.