[Cob] sinking logs in cob?

[Marlin]

I'm still convinced that the best way to use cordwood/cob, in most areas that have regular construction waste, is to chop 2x4 or other construction cutoffs and lay them in the cob wall like cordwood (with an insulation gap)....this utilized landfill material and is the easiest to cut to perfect size (chop saw doing many per minute rather than a chainsaw rig getting difficult cuts) and have absolute stabilized wood that doesn't shrink or crack..

then as said below you can just earthen plaster over the whole thing and it looks like a cob wall!

Marlin 


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-----Original Message-----
From:     Amanda Peck <ap615 at hotmail.com>
Sent:     Fri, 01 Oct 2004 10:02:23 -0500
To:       coblist at deatech.com
Subject:  RE: [Cob] sinking logs in cob?


How well dried is that cedar?  My friends who used it in cordwood masonry 
hated it.  Maybe it continued drying and split a bit more, but they were 
inundated with Asian Lady-beetles.  So they plastered over the outside 
instead of trying to caulk each of the cracks.  It still looks nice inside.  
Perfectly lovely, in fact.  They didn't use it everywhere--part of their 
house is buried in the slope and they used slip-form stone/concrete for all 
that part.  The transitions are nice, natural borders and then cordwood 
masonry.

When Roy and Evans (not Rogers and Dale!) did cob cordwood, I'd be surprised 
if they did leave a insulating space.

If it was me, I would do it cordwood style, not putting logs in lengthwise.  
Seems like it would be stronger that way.

I didn't quite realize how much farther south you were, at least in terms of 
climate.  We'll most likely get our first frost later this month, tiny bits 
of frost in the low pockets, if not a killing frost followed by two weeks of 
Indian Summer.


.............

Kim wrote, snipped heavily:

...so we are planning to use the dried cedar [Eastern Redcedar] log 
sections.
......

I know that in cordwood construction the walls are built with a space 
between the outer and inner walls--leaving a dead space or filled with some 
type of insulating material. ........  The average first day to reach 32 
degrees low temp is December 21st.

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