still designing

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Thu, 12 Dec 1996 goshawk at gnat.net wrote:

> Ok 
> I'm still thinking out loud.
> I have wet weather here so 1 foot would be minumum. 
> (the foundation above grade I mean)
> Actually I was thinking of digging two feet down putting my footing 
> in (wider than 18 in wall)
> (could I mix mix a bunch of dry cement to the gravel, mix and add 
> water to get basically a cement slab for the footing)
>  then  put a stone wall (aka stem wall) up four feet so 
> that two feet of the outside wall would be exposed above grade and 
> the crawl space would be four feet ( 2 + 2 ) 
> The 4 foot  stone wall shouldn't have any trouble handling the weight of the 
> cob wall???
> By the way, I looking  at my last straw magazine
> (you know that other building technique..just kidding)
>  I noticed  they have a 
> section on foundations. they mention dry stone but not stone with 
> mortar. Any particular reason? I guess I'm just nervous because I 
> really love stone and don't want to find a good reason not to use it.

I suspect they didn't bother with mortared stone foundations because they
are fairly common, dry stone foundations allow you to get away from that
nasty cement based stuff :-)  Cob Cottage Company's current foundations
are typically rubble trench footing with a one foot above grade dry stone
wall (sort of) except that they use a lime mortar to fill in the gaps
between the stones to help keep out moisture and critters.  The lime
mortar provides absolutely NO binding strength to the wall (at least not
initially), so it essentially is just a dry stone foundation.


Shannon Dealy
dealy at deatech.com