[Cob] Re: The Mobile Home

[Barbara Roemer]

Lee, had you asked your original question on the straw bales lists, you'd
have had a totally different response because it's do-able, people have done
it, and it can be very serviceable and attractive.  It will require
extending the roof line and making a rubble trench foundation or pouring a
foundation for the bales.  As Charmaine points out, you can put a light
plaster on the exterior walls, but there will be nothing holding the clay to
the mobile walls save whatever you tack to the walls.  Therefore, you can't
really cob on the wall.  Cob is very permeable, as is bale with an earthen
plaster.  Because of the permeablility to vapor and moisture, you can get
condensation on your metal walls with either, something to assiduously
avoid.  With bale, one includes a layer of gravel between the structure and
the bales as a drainage plane.  (I don't see why that wouldn't work with
cob, either, but straw will wick the moisture away more effectively.)  There
are pics of just such on one of the lists.  Email me off-list if you are
interested.