[Cob] Top soil

[Bill&Julie]

Hello Jane,,, Humus is the Bad culprit in cob,

http://www.ar.wroc.pl/~weber/typy2.htm

This link is the first one I found for Humus Identification.

Humus is the plant matter in soil. If you put a rock in your yard, it will

kill and rot the humus. And the rock will sink into the soil. ( In a year )

I laid some rocks around my clothes line pole ten years ago,

and the divot they caused is still there.

All this is to say, that humus in top soil is not dimensionally stable.

While the COB may not notice 1% top soil, 20 or 30% would not be

a good thing. When is shrinks the cob will fail.



A person could always test to prove their system and for

Quality Control. You probably should do that anyway.

Label and Document batches...



Hope this helps,,, bill




----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jane at kirstinelund.dk>
To: <coblist at deatech.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 2:07 AM
Subject: [Cob] Top soil


> Does anyone have any experience - good or bad - with the presence of top
> soil in cob? I know that you are not supposed to use it, but how bad is it
> if you get a smaller amount mixed in to your cob mix?
>
> The thing is, that we have a lot of top soil mixed piles of subsoil sand
> lying around. It was kind of hard to keep apart when we digged out the
> foundation (we used a machine, and the site is sloping), but it would be
> nice to be able to use it.
>
> Jane
>
>
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