Cob Re: Carpet/cement per Pat

[Stephen H. Kapit]

Where in the Sierra's are you? Nevada City?

Stephen

Laurie Flood wrote:

> Don Stephens wrote:
>
> > The common confusion with earth is between INSULATION and MODERATION.
> > as
> > I indicated above, earth has a very poor ability to insulate - prevent
> > the
> > transfer (escape/intrusion) of heat.  On the other hand it has a high
> > mass
> > which very effectively moderates temperatures - it takes a lot of heat
> > to
> > warm it up, a lot of cold to cool it down.  This means if your day
> > temperature is ~ 20 F. but it drops to - 10 F. overnight, the soil
> > surface
> > in the morning will have dropped down almost to the - 10, but even
> > just 3"
> > down the soil will remain an AVERAGE of all the temperatures of the
> > past
> > week - say ~ 15.  So the underlying roof won't "see" those short-term
> > overnight drops.  Likewise, in summer, if you have two or three
> > blazing
> > days of + 105 F., under even three inches of dirt your roof will never
> >
> > "see"  it, instead remaining the several week day/night average of say
> > ~
> > 75 F.!
> >
> > Also the PLANT LIFE on top will reduce windchill and increase air film
> >
> > insulation factors in winter and the shading and transpiration cooling
> > it
> > provides will help in summer.
> >
> > So plants/dirt on top shield against short-term weather extremes, but
> > to
> > prevent the slow penitration of outdoors summer heat or the slow
> > escape of
> > indoors winter warmth, you want INSULATION, and at R-.2/inch, it's
> > just
> > too expensive to suport the R-40 (almost 17 feet!) you would
> > theoretically
> > need in some northern climates,
> >
> > I say "theoretically"  because the soil's thermal flywheel effect is
> > such
> > that it takes (in dry soil) about a month for heat to travel 18", so
> > in 6
> > months (9' of soil)  your winter heat would be escaping but it
> > wouldn't
> > matter because you'd enjoy that cooling 'cause it would be summer!
> > They
> > use that principle in Australia (See AUSTRALIAN EARTH-COVERED BUILDING
> > by
> > Baggs - Rog, have you seen that one?) to let summer sun arrive in
> > winter
> > and winter cool arrive in summer, but it means holding up hellacious
> > amounts of dirt with "hell-fer-stout" concrete roofs and walls.  They
> > should discover subsurface insulation as a way to hugely deminish
> > those
> > loads. (As I've indicated before, I'm into minimizing concrete for
> > eco-reasons.)
> >
> >
>
> Don,
>
> I am interested in this, because it is my situation.  What would you
> recommend in a very cold and wet winter climate (heavy snow and rain) in
> terms of a balance of insulation and moderation?  I notice that you say
> that dry soil has the best thermal flywheel effect.  That is not the
> winter reality here.  How could I best get the insulation and
> moderation, or is the moderation only possible with dry soil i.e. how
> much subsurface insulation and how much soil on top?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Laurie Flood
> 4,500' level in N. Sierra (Thinking of trying to move to 6,000'+)



--
Stephen H. Kapit
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