[Cob] thermal mass, insulation and "Ianto says"

[Amanda Peck]

My guess is that you may not get much in the way of good scientific 
comparison on the difference between "thermal mass" and "insulation."  
You're measuring different things when you do laboratory tests, IIRC.

Rob Roy in upstate New York uses--or used--some hybrid components in his 
cordwood masonry buildings--a layer of fiberglass in the center of his 
walls.  He reported in one of his first books going away for days leaving 
the sole source of heat in his house a couple of big dogs (presumably 
somebody came by to feed water and let them out occasionally), coming back 
to a still warm house.

The Nearings--and the other couple who learned from them and then wrote the 
book--both on the New England coast, really loved just the slipform concrete 
with stone, found it warm and wonderful.

I'm too lazy to look it up, but as I remember it "IANTO SAYS" that you're 
fine in a house you actually live in full-time with cob and no extra wall 
insulation.  If you're going to use the building as a once-a-week community 
center or for ski vacations, heavy duty insulation is better because....

While thermal mass holds heat beautifully for reasons having not all that 
much to do with insulation values, it also holds COLD once it gets COLD, and 
might take a day or so to warm back up, not good at all for occasional use 
buildings.

Which would lead me to wonder if "best of both worlds" might not be fiction 
when it's applied to a rarely used building. Unless of course you go to 
PAHS--Passive Annual Heat Storage.  THis list DOES NOT NEED to go there, I 
think there's a list more or less of its own, and there are plenty of 
threads in other lists available for a search.

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