[Cob] Straw's Out. How About Palm Leaves?

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005, Patrick Newberry wrote:

> While straw is nice, even preferred, I do not believe it is necessary.
> I've seen earthen structures built in west africa with a red clay that
> did not use straw and was just fine.
>
> I'd still want to coat with lime however.

There are earthen structures all over the world built without straw, 
however, if you don't find some sort of fiber with reasonable tensile 
strength to include in your mix in significant quantities, the odds of 
some or all of your structure coming down in the next earthquake go 
way up.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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