Cob: natural remodel

[Darel Henman]

Ted,
  I would recommend that you take of the old wall board and disponse of
the paint some way that is proper.  Ask your city health department how
to dispose of the paint.

 Tearing it down should be easy.  Put a proper mask on, take a pry bar
and yank the stuff off as neatly as possible.  Take it all out,
preferrably out an attic window onto a tarp or something, then
processing can be done outside.  

By doing this you can also get a look at the wall studs and investigate
their condition.  You may want to install installation or something
there as well.  90 year old houses didn't have any or much insulation. 
You could do the light straw clay in the cavities, then do a earthen
plaster of the whole lot.  You should apply a layer of hemp mesh or
straw across the edges of the studs to keep the color of the wall
uniform, and also keeps major cracks from happening when the material
shrinks on drying.  Then apply the final layers of earthen plaster.

  From my reading an acidic soil will be very bad to attach to metalic
elements.  
  Also, earthen plasters need something to anchor into, groves,
knotches, etc.  Metal is generally not a proper substrate for eathen
walls.  Paint is also bad even without the metal if does not allow
moisture absorption.

Darel

Ted Schluenderfritz wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> I ended up buying a 90  year old house and I would like to fix up the
> finished attic space. It's got some sort of wall board that was painted
> with a lead based paint (full of holes and peeling wallpaper on top of the
> lead paint). Would it be possible to cob/plaster or light-straw-clay over
> the walls to provide some additional insulation and to protect my family
> from the lead. would this be too heavy for the floor?
> 
> what about the ceiling which has the same wallboard type material on it (I
> believe the previous occupant used drywall tape/compound on the seams--it
> looks like a very bad job of dry-walling)
> 
> Has anyone done this on an existing structure?
> 
> Thanks for any help you can give!
> 
> Ted