Cob: Oklahoma thoughts and concerns

[Robert Waldrop]

I think I must be missing some messages, because I didn't see the
original message with questions about Oklahoma.  I am in Oklahoma
City, and we don't have air conditioning.  Our house was built in
1929, and still isn't well insulated (it's the next project after the
rewiring), but we manage to stay comfortable, this is our third year
without AC.  It's also the first year we got the hang of how to
ventilate at night, and then keep things closed up tight during the
day.  We have ceiling fans and a couple of other fans to move air
around inside during the day, and to ventilate the house at night.  We
just put a new roof on, and thus got some ventilation into our
previously unventilated attic and that helps.  We shade the windows
from the outside with curtains we made from some mylar mats we got at
a dollar store, and those are covered with white rollup shades, which
are strictly for the aesthetics.

The house talked about in the email which circulated water through
pipes in the ground and then through the walls of the house was built
in the 1970s in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I am not sure if it is still
operating or not, but it's one of the things on my list of "stuff to
find out about".

I have also wondered about tornados and cob houses, but if a cob house
will survive an earthquake (as many apparently have) it seems likely
to me that it would survive a tornado, although the roof might not
make it I guess.

Right now nights are in the 70s, but sure enough we might get two
weeks where the temp doesn't drop at night below the 80s, and
sometimes we get humidity with that.

To turn to another cob question, we've been given two lots in our
neighborhood to develop as community gardens, and I was wondering what
y'all think about using cob as the walls for raised beds.  One idea
for the plan of the gardens is to have the beds spiral out from a
center space (a statue, some benches, a small pavement), but getting
the beds curved properly is a challenge with conventional ideas like 4
x 4" posts or logs, which is what we used when we began converting our
lawn to gardens.

We are long on labor, and short on money, so something like cob seems
to me to be a great choice.  It's very important to us that the garden
look beautiful as well as be productive, and something in me thinks
the idea of cob walls for garden beds would be very attractive.  Any
thoughts?

Robert Waldrop, Oklahoma City
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Shannon C. Dealy <dealy at deatech.com>