Cob: RE: RE: Insulation - vermiculite

[Sojourner]

"Kelly, Sean" wrote:
> 
> You know, John, I was just going to ask the same thing...
> 
> Lyle or Holly,
> 
> Please clue the rest of us (or at least John and I, I guess) in to the magic
> of vermiculite...  Is this some miracle additive to insulate with?

I don't know what Lyle's suggestion is, but there are two ways I can see
vermiculite being useful as insulation.

One is as cavity fill, much as you would use sawdust (although I can get
all the sawdust I could possibly want for free from local sawmills, and
vermiculite costs).

The other potential way to use it might be to use it as a cob additive.

I couldn't BEGIN to say how well that might work or what it might do to
the strength of the mix.  I would think that anyone seriously
considering using it as an additive might want to do some serious
testing with it first, but then that pretty much goes for ANYTHING you
do with cob, it seems to me, since the ingredients are so
individualistic - your clay is most likely totally different from mine,
some people use straw in the mix, some don't, etc. etc. etc.

Holly ;-D