Cob in cold climes

[Will Firstbrook]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your kind words.  I am planning to have slanted walls on inside
and outside my cob-strawbale structure. By bending the bales so they slant
inwards for the outside and making the cob thicker on the bottom of the
wall and thinner on the top.  So the walls will have great insulation all
the way up, but less mass at the top. I think both the strawbale and cob
sections will be load bearing. But I was also thinking of having a section
post & beam with the full sized timbers. One of the things I really liked
about Patrick's structure was how the wall sloped outwards on the top of
the inside walls. I think the real reason it was thinner was he had to
finish the top part of the cob walls himself, the workshop help was gone. I
did notice it was colder on the thinner parts of the wall as compared to
the thicker sections.

I will probably head up to my strawbale cabin next weekend to do some
wiring. And pick-up my good cameras so I can develop some pictures of our
cabin. I used my wife's point and shoot pentax which is weird as it takes
the picture 3 - 5 seconds after you press the button. 

Regards,
Will

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From: David Knapp <DMKnapp at mail.rkd.snds.com>
To: coblist at deatech.com; wfirstbr at direct.ca
Subject: Re: Cob in cold climes
Date: Sunday, March 21, 1999 5:06 AM

Great photo's Will.  I could use a whole neighborhood of them instead of
the vinyl sided tract-built jungle that is going up right now in the
previously empty cornfield across from my house.

The pictures are good enough to eat!  You ought to repost your message to
the ESSA list as well.

This is something to dream about while I work some "free" overtime on this
Sunday morning (the only time I can get my work done due to the constant
(phone) interruptions during the week.

I have some questions for you regarding your sb modifications you would
perhaps make.  Any guesses how thick you'd make the interior cob wall
section (next to the sb)?  Would it be straight or tapered?  Normally the
inside is straight and outside tapered, but in this case it requires a
different approach I guess.  Would the sb or cob section (or both) be the
load bearing part?

Thanks for the sunshine,

Dave