Cob Hot water pipes in cob walls?

[mpayson at eskimo.com]

I wouldn't use plastic pipes. In this case, you *want* the pipes to lose heat--
that's the whole point-- so the better insulation of the plastic pipes would
defeat the purpose. I suspect that you'll be fine...

One thing I would do is put the pipes only an inch or so deep. That helps two
ways-- first, you want the heat radiated inwards as much as possible, so putting
the pipes close to the inside wall will reduce heat loss. Second, in the event of
a leak, you'll likely notice it before any substantial damage occurs.

You might want to go with flexible coper tubing as opposed to rigid pipes. That
way, you'll have much fewer joints, thereby reducing the potential of leaks.

Please keep me up-to-date on your results. I'm not building for quite a while, so
I'd love to know how it works for you.

Mike

PS. One more idea: You might try to figure out a way to actually have the hot
water circulating through the pipes as you lay the cob. That'll help not only by
expanding the pipes, so they won't cause damage by exapnding, but it will also
speed the cob drying, so might help you work faster. Probably not worth the
hassle, but might be an interesting idea.

Ersson Family wrote:

> Dear Mike,
> Your comments about consensus notwithstanding, I plan to place my heating
> pipes for our family's straw bale house with cob/earthen plaster finish in
> the perimeter wall with probably 3/4" copper pipe. My thinking is that this
> will be much easier than floor imbedded pipes, and equally as effective. We
> will likely employ a normal domestic natural gas or propane fired hot water
> heater and a small circulation pump. Admittedly, I have no prior experience
> in such an installation. In the unlikely event that they do spring a leak
> in the future, this would be much easier to confirm and repair than pipes
> in a floor.
> The only real question for me is whether it will be better to use the same
> kind of plastic piping normally used in floors rather than copper. Once the
> cob/plaster finish is dry I won't be too worried about cracking.
> If you have information about real experiences that turned into disasters
> using this method, please share it with the list.
> Regards, Ole Ersson
>
> At 10:55 PM 12/13/98 -0800, you wrote:
> >Well, the general concensus is: Asolutely Not!
> >
> >Makes sense, too, since they would likely spring a leak at some point in
> their
> >life. I'm sure that you could make such a system work by carefully designing
> >your walls, but it's probably not worth the hassle, & no matter how well
> >designed, there's still a chance of it failing.
> >
> >Oh, well... It was a nice try.
> >
> >Mike
> >
> >mpayson at eskimo.com wrote:
> >
> >> I'm curious... It seems that an easy way to distribute heat throughout a
> cob
> >> house would be to run metal water pipes through the walls, & centrally heat
> >> the water in a fireplace. Obviously, there are logistical things to be
> >> considered, but in general, would this work? You'd need a lot of pipe, but
> >> my main concern would be that the pipe would expand when heated, possibly
> >> cracking the wall...
> >>
> >> I'm just curious if anyone has tried this or anything like it?
>
> ---- http://www.rdrop.com/users/krishna ----
> experiments in sustainable urban living: rainwater harvesting, strawbale
> construction, waterless toilets, compost heating, rooftop gardening



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