Cob and Bathrooms (fairly long)

[Keftydia at aol.com]

Patrick Newberry (goshawk at gnat.net) writes:

<<I'm not that far from putting in an open shower and the walls are earth bags
walls.  For the shower areas, I'm going plaster the walls with cement and then
coat them with something that will waterproof them.  This will only be on the
side that will have the shower.  The opposite side will be earthplaster, thus
I feel they will be ok.>>

I just read some material on earth bag (or superadobe) construction.  It seems
like a good alternative.  The interiors of the homes on Khalili's site are
impressive.  This might be a good alternative to using cob in wet areas, since
the bags could be waterproofed without worry of potential structural
degradation from trapped moisture.  I also like the fact that (from what I've
read) ANY dirt will do as long as it's placed in the bags, "mortared" with
barbed wire, and tamped down.  It seems there are no critical ratios of
clay:sand to hinder progress.

<<I'd probably go a lot smaller or at least make it more modular than I am
going to end up with.  I mean I love the house I am going to end up with, it's
just it really is a BIG undertaking.  I think now that I'd like to have
already been living "down the hill" as we call it here.  Now I was thinking
about 1800 sq ft when I started and I'm down a bit(1600).  I could hardly
imagine 2500 sq ft.>>

I realize the house is a huge undertaking.  In all honesty, I'm sure I'll
scale it down.  It really is too large for my needs.  But it doesn't hurt to
dream, eh?

<>

I also work full time, so my cob time will be limited to evenings and
weekends.  In my case, however, time isn't a major issue.  If it takes 2 years
to build, that's great; if it stretches into 5 years, so be it.  Since I'm
comfortable where I am now, I don't really need to rush construction.
Besides, I think having a house-sized "hobby" is a surefire way to avoid bone-
idleness.  :-)

<<Where are you located?>>

I'm in the Pee Dee area of South Carolina....somewhere between Myrtle Beach
and Florence.

<<Your link for your house.gif link didn't work>>

Sorry!  I fixed it.

<<Two floors? both cob?
Thats a lot of mud.>>

Well, my plan is to build all the load-bearing walls from cob.  In this
particular case, the entire outer shell and three or four interior "divider"
walls will be cob.  I think this will provide plenty of support for a wooden
floor on the second level.  If  I even build two stories.  That's the plan for
now, but if I scale the home down, then I won't have to worry about it.  I
just like multi-level homes because in this area, we don't have many of them.
Almost everyone here has a flat-level ranch type home.

For now, I plan to use hewn logs for joists (vigas?) for the upper
floor...just buried directly into the cob walls.  Then I'll lay a wooden
subfloor on top of that.  Maybe I'm naive to the difficulty?

<<Curves and Corners are good things in cob designs as a long straight walls
are more unstable. Of course I lean more toward organic shapes rather than box
shapes.>>

While I realize the majority of the postings I've read are in favor of curved
walls and organic shapes, I may be somewhat the heretic by saying although I
am not opposed to them, I prefer more rectilinear designs.  I realize the
curves are inherently more stable by the simple virtue of shape, but I
understand that straight walls are fine as well, as long as they are properly
buttressed.  The few historic cob homes that I've seen on the web in Devon
look pretty square to me.  Even the plans and renderings that Michael posted
from the Devon Historic Buildings Trust show fairly linear shapes (by the way,
if there's anyone who has not looked at these documents, I highly recommend
doing so...I gleaned a lot of information from them, some of it contrary, or
at least somewhat different, from what I've read elsewhere).  This not to say
that I don't want round forms in my home.  Heck, the entryway is round.  I
just don't feel I have to round everything.

Pat, I've been a fan of your site for quite some time.  I really like your
plans and think you're doing a great job.  If time ever permits, I'd like to
head down to Mauk and give you a hand.

I'm going to post this to the entire list because I feel it's of interest to
those still contemplating cob homes but somewhat daunted by the task.  Perhaps
by bouncing these ideas around they can gain inspiration from my mistakes.  I
also welcome advice from more seasoned cobbers, since as we say around here,
"they've already been where I've got to go."

Metta to all,
Ron Cameron