Good Roof & Bad Sauna

[M J Epko]

        Thanks for the mail help, Shannon!

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        Other stuff:

        In response to my inability to figure out how to attach the roof,
Shannon wrote:

>Actually you just embed your attachment in the cob, the specifics depend
>on the desired attachment technique, but you could for example wrap short
>sections of steel cable around small chunks of fire wood and embed the
>chunks of wood in the wall a foot or so below the top of the wall with the
>cables extending up through the top to attach to.  Alternatively you could
>make an inverted wooden 'T' and embed it in the wall with the base of the
>'T' sticking up out of the top of the wall.

        This helps! I was going the right direction, but on the wrong track.
I *was* missing something obvious, but only by a little. (A dangerous
little, yes...)

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        I wrote, confusingly:

"... a somewhat spiral-like (like a top view of a snail shell) cob structure..."

        and Shannon responded:

>I am not sure I understand this correctly, is the cob spiraling up so
>that is forms an interior roof as well as support structure?  If so, this
>would make me nervous, but I have a general philosophy of never putting
>anything over my head that I wouldn't want to fall on it.

        Heh-heh-heh. Good philosophy.
        No, I'm not so bold as to build a cob dome. I should more accurately
have said "like the outline of the top view of a snail shell." Like a
hastily-drawn circle whose beginning and end don't match. Like a stylized
"G". Just yer standard vaguely elliptic almost-circle. Nothing fancy.
        The entire structure would be sort of like a wagon wheel laying on
the ground: the large hub made of cob and the tire-part would be strawbale.
The spokes would be the joists, but would be laying on top of the hub and
tire, rather than attached to the middle of them.

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        I wrote:

>> ... should the bathroom side of the cob wall be
>> waterproofed, or do we suspect that the direct ventilation will suffice? The
>> source of my wedded bliss wants a sauna in there - this changes the picture
>> some, eh?

        Shannon responded:

>If you are using it for a sauna, then you won't be providing any direct
>ventilation while it's performing it's sauna function.

        Generally I'd agree, since most saunas are gas or electric. This
will most likely be a wood-fired affair, and it's my understanding that
*very* adequate and active ventilation is vital - not just to cheat death,
but to manually moderate the notoriously-difficult-to-control temperature.
It depends a lot on as yet undetermined details. We work different shifts &
communication is tricky. I frankly don't know if I'm supposed to be planning
for a traditional soggy sauna, or a more dry sweat-lodge-type thing. I
better find out. Even if it is inside, I don't think I want it to be the
whole 12'+ diameter area of the bathroom.
        I took a class a couple years back on sauna-building from the owner
of Finn-Sisu (which by no means makes me an expert), and he stressed the
absolute requirement of seemingly ludicrous amounts of available ventilation
that should be designed into wood-fired saunas.
        Maybe I should just make the damn thing outside, as a separate
building. That makes a lot more sense to me.

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       M J Epko    duckchow at ix.netcom.com
        http://www.netcom.com/~duckchow/