[Cob] reinforcing!!

[Joe Skeesick]

(sorry, originally replied only to the sender)

Rebar doesn't work well and in fact can wick moisture up into the wall. It
also tends to corrode inside the wall making a week spot. In repairing cob
walls in the UK we would put through a sort of "screw" of stainless steel
reinforce cracked areas. These were drilled in at angles to the crack. They
were not however used at all in new builds. The reinforcement in cob comes
from the straw. It is conceivable that a man made fiber of some sort could
be used to help increase tensile strength of cob. Something like a
fiberglass or Kevlar fiber MIGHT do the trick but that is shear speculation
on my part. Otherwise the best way to strengthen a cob wall is to make it
thicker and minimize unbroken lengths of straight wall. Curves are fine but
intersecting cob walls or buttresses do the job just fine.

J

-----Original Message-----
From: coblist-bounces at deatech.com [mailto:coblist-bounces at deatech.com]On
Behalf Of laythss at yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 9:52 PM
To: coblist at deatech.com
Subject: [Cob] reinforcing!!


Hello all,
First of all, This question is for my  architectural masters thesis.
   I was wondering your thoughts about how to reinforce a  cob
structure. (to be approved by local authorities).  I am in california.
what i was thinking of is  adding  5% cement to the cob walls, using a
reinforced cement foundation along with a wooden (or cement) bond beam
for the top, and reinforcing the walls with rebar.  The problem is this
method seems to contradict the original idea of building with cob
(adobe or rammed earth for that matter).  I was not able to get the New
Zealand standards to see what they are doing (it seems there must be a
better way, especially for rammed earth, since How are you supposed to
ram the soil if you have rebar sticking out).

I hope to hear your ideas, comments, links, insights. Every, and any
thing is helpful for me.

Layth



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