[Cob] Re: cob stoves & light straw

[Barbara Roemer and Glenn Miller]

Charmaine and Kyle,

The subject line mislead you, Charmaine.  Brad's comment and my response
were in regard to the insulation value of light straw clay.  It had nothing
to do with the insulation question about cob ovens.  (And the cob oven ? I
answered was about vitrification.)

Kyle, I didn't mean that it was difficult to figure out the R value of a
certain combination of elements, and of course the interior plaster
moderates temperature.  Nonetheless, the light straw clay structures I've
been in behave better (in terms of moderating temperature) than the wall
system and its plaster skins would indicate.  I compared it to log walls, in
which you can measure the R value, but the comfort and U values are
apparently not directly related to that measurable R value so that, as a
system, log houses work better than the R value would indicate.