[Cob] Marlin's rubble trench

[Yun Que]

   Cat here!  Check out the foundations built by Frank Lloyd Wright.  He
   used rubble often in his homes to great advantage.  They moved with
   the earth.  His use of reinforced cement and experiments with  copper
   pipe in cement failed but his natural systems are still working.
   for the good of all C.
       ______________________________________________________________

     From: "Amanda Peck" <ap615 at hotmail.com>
     To: Coblist at deatech.com
     Subject: Re: [Cob] Marlin's rubble trench
     Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 21:08:27 -0600
     >
     >
     >Around here, I've been told that the ideal for a rubble trench is
     >the 1" -2" crushed limestone. Not the bigger (although some mixed
     >in with that seems to pack down nicely), not the "crusher run" or
     >"fines" or "roadbase," which can pack down into something that
     will
     >retain water. My informants say that the crushed stuff bonds to
     the
     >surrounding soil better. No information on whether that is true.
     >
     >by the way---
     >
     >Footing--in modern building, something on the order of a nice pad
     of
     >generally reinforced concrete rougly 2x the width of the next
     layer
     >up--sometimes a little less than that if you have wide, light
     walls,
     >e.g., straw bale.
     >
     >Foundation--heavy duty pier or continuous layer--holds up the
     walls.
     > If it's continuous it can also form the basement walls--needs to
     >be waterproof. Modern practice is not to vent a continuous
     >foundation but to provide drainage outside of it. Rubble
     >trench--e.g., Marlin's river rock, or the local here crushed rock
     >does have masonry of one kind or another, stone or urbanite for
     the
     >most part from ground level--or just below, on up. Needs to be the
     >width of the base of the walls. May or may not be reinforced.
     >Depending on who you are, you may or may not feel the need of a
     bond
     >beam above that (yes, generally, with straw bale, but you'd be
     hard
     >pressed to do that with some of the stemwalls for cob houses)
     >.....................
     >
     >Marlin wrote:
     >We used 'river stone' or washed stone - 1 , 1 1/2
     >inches usually...it's actually from glacial drop
     >around here.
     >
     >
     >
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