Cob verify?

[Speireag Alden]

Sgrìobh Mike:

> I have heard quite the contrary. The cob has great thermal mass which
> means it
> has the ability to keep temperatures constant both day and night. you don't
> need a/c, and only minimal heat in the winter. Have you ever heard of a cave
> having the same average mean temperature all year round? well, cob acts
> in the
> same way. A cave is asigned a thermal mass, depending on how deep it is and
> what the walls and beyond are made of. With cob, the thermal mass is
> terrific...period. However, the thicker, the better. As long as you have a
> roof with a high "R" value (to minimize thermal transference), and good
> quality windows and doors, you can keep your cob house warm with minimal
> energy output, no matter where it is!

Mike -

    Though I like the idea of cob, I am very skeptical of this claim. 
Cob's insulative value is not all that much better than stone, and stone 
houses without good insulation perform very poorly in climates where 
wintertime temperatures stay below the comfort level for long periods of 
time (weeks and months).  That certainly includes Vermont, and also New 
Hampshire, where I live.  Awhile back we had a testimonial from a fellow 
who lived in Minnesota in a stone house; he said that he was always cold.

    For cold climates, you want to couple an outer layer of insulation with 
the inner thermal mass.

    In a cob building, you don't have anything like the same mass that a 
cave has; the cave, if it's deep, has many orders of magnitude more mass, 
and also earth-coupling across its entire surface area, unlike cob.  You 
might draw a parallel between a cave and an earth-coupled underground 
house, but not a cob house.

    Best wishes,

-Speireag.
0>>>>>>(---------------------
Speireag Alden, aka Joshua Macdonald Alden
Joshua.M.Alden.91 at alum.dartmouth.org
Usually found somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire.
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