[Cob] cob/earth oven form- Ceiliing insulation

[Charmaine Taylor]

ahhh I will have to go see one of his old books..he may have, that guy 
was a genius...I wanted to cross-post  the msg below   [ which I had 
sent to the SB R Us list] they are discussing  insulation for ceilings, 
and were chatting about  bagging  rice hulls in burlap sacks.
++++++++++++++++++

Charmaine said:

> I was fascinated by a Ken kern solution for sawdust stuffing that I 
> adapted to a simpler method. Kern made hollow  'logs' out of kraft 
> paper,
taped over a 8" pipe, then slid the pipe out and filled with sawdust, 
sprinkled with lime, and taped the ends.

I tried this and it was a lot of work and too much tape.

So I took brown kraft shopping bags from the grocer. Filled with 
sawdust mix,   folded down the lip to make a block. Said block was then 
dipped in clay slurry and left to dry as flat as possible. then it 
became a  soft building  'brick' and i placed it into the wall stud 
cavity. Lath can be placed to hold it in, or buttered with a clay mix 
or lime mortar,  and then plastered over.

this could work for ceilings too, and the  premade bag of rice hulls, 
when clay dipped is  a bit more fire resistant and ready for a plaster 
coat

I am currently infilling all the walls of my old  redwood barn/ work 
studio with precast sawdust clay-lime blocks, [ no rice hulls to play 
with]  and was looking for a lighter answer for ceiling use. I may do 
this soft block thingy again for that.

http://www.northcoast.com/~tms/E-overhead-bare2.JPG         bare east 
gable

http://www.northcoast.com/~tms/E-wet-infill.JPG     bays infilled with 
dry blocks buttered with wet mix, cubbies below got wet mix only.

yeah it looks very messy in a photo, i see where muddy hands touched 
all over,  but it goes fast as a work task, and the whole   wall will 
be a smooth paper-lime plaster eventually, as other walls now are.


  In addition, burlap bags filled with a lime-sawdust mix, dipped in 
clay and stuffed into the ceiling space are easy to tack up with nails 
too.

Charmaine Taylor Publishing  books at dirtcheapbuilder.com
PO Box 375 Cutten CA   95534 707-441-1632
www.dirtcheapbuilder.com  www.papercrete.com



On Jun 29, 2004, at 2:47 PM, Amanda Peck wrote:

>
> I haven't, but didn't Ken Kern cover his 35/55 gallon drum stoves? I 
> think he put fiberglass between the masonry and the stove.  He was 
> also real real big on refractory cement.
>