Cob Earth berming cob buildings?

[Speireag Alden]

Sgrìobh Don Stephens:

>Besides the relatively tempurature-stabile storage area this provides, it
>offers a number of additional benefits - no lateral pressure on the back
>house wall, a place to run, modify and service plumbing, electrical, etc.,
>a great place for a composting toilet, a heat plenium to incorporate in an
>annualized passive solar heating system (using the resultant dry soil as
>thermal storage/flywheel mass and a place for movable insulation on that
>wall of the house, to receive or resist heat transfer from that soil mass.
>
>I've gone on long enough on peripheral elements on a site to be restricted
>to cob, but if others are interested in these ideas related to earth-
>contacted cob and other moisture-sensitive materials and/or techniques of
>annualized/isolated-gain passive solar, I'd enjoy hearing from you on the
>side.  Jud, I hope some of this is of interest and help in your project.
>I'll finish by responding to you request for help by quoting somebody's
>(?) caution to "beware of all advice, including this!"

Don -

    Very interesting.  I am building an above-ground straw-bale structure
which will someday be the attached accessory apartment to a larger house.
Since bedrock is between zero and six feet down on our site in western
central New Hampshire, I'm planning to excavate down to bedrock for the
larger house, and then bury it as much as possible in a south-facing slope.
I had thoughthat for the underground portions I would have to insulate with
blueboard or rockwool panels or somesuch, because straw bales would
deteriorate almost inevitably as part of a below-ground wall.  So says the
literature.  You seem to be saying that it's feasible.  Have you actually
used any in this application in a heating climate like mine?  Any long-term
monitoring?

-Speireag.
0>>>>>>(---------------------
Speireag Alden, aka Joshua Macdonald Alden
Joshua.M.Alden.91 at alum.dartmouth.edu
Usually found somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire.
Nach sgrìobhaidh thugam 'sa Gàidhlig?