[Cob] Cob in Ohio

[Marlin Nissen]

First of all I agree with his thought about the lack
of insulation - Cob is mass and when mass is kept cold
long enuff i.e. long northern winters, it takes a lot
of added heat to feel warm on the inside - burn wood
or something and a lot of it for a long time.

You'll get a few suggestions, likely most will include
wrapping cob around an insulation layer, like a straw
bale wall. That makes a large wall especially if
you're doing both a cob wall inside and outside of the
SB wall - lots of thickness! You might, at that point,
just build a load bearing SB wall - - - - BUT...if you
want to still build a curved, sculpted wall:

      My pet idea (I admit) is to build a cordwood
type project that still uses cob as the mortar. Don't
know how familiar you are but a cobwood wall is just 2
cob walls that are bridged by wood (in this case cut
firewood stuff) with insulation in the middle of the
two walls - around the wood elements that span the two
walls.

To take this a step further I would like to see the
cordwood replaced with cutoff construction scrap (kiln
dried 2x4s) from the dumpsters at all the un-natural
building going on in the suburbs around most American
cities...the cutoff scraps are uniform, completely dry
(no shrinkage -  that's a pain), they're easy to chop
saw to EXACT lengths and you can cover over the ends
of the wall with more cob/plaster so you don't know
that the wood ever existed(or paint them or arrange
them in some type of symmetry),,,,,voila you have a
'Cob' wall! And you mix MUCH less cob then a
similarily sized Cob wall.

Also having wood behind the plaster wall every few
inches provides great anchor points to screw things
into.

We call it 'Cob Scrap'.......

      Looks just like a Cob wall, only with insulation
(determine how wide an insulation gap you need). Still
takes advantage of the ease of the
technicalities/flexibility of building that is Cob!

P.S. I would make the inside of the 2 walls MUCH
thicker then the outside one as the INSIDE mass of cob
will be part of your thermal mass....but all the heat
won't bleed to the outside wall and to the outside
world.....The outside wall is mostly a stability and
plaster layer. The inside wall will then be your load
bearer etc.

Best,

Marlin


--- Rob Lewis <RLewis at davmail.org> wrote:

> I have been consulting with a green architect who
> has advised me not to
> build with cob. This is because the area where I
> live, northern
> Kentucky/SW Ohio, is, according to him, unsuitable
> for cob. His main
> concern is winter temps and r-factor/insulation
> issues. Is there any way
> to salvage my dream of building cob on my property?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Coblist mailing list
> Coblist at deatech.com
> http://www.deatech.com/mailman/listinfo/coblist
> 


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