[Cob] Cob and fungus

[Monica Proulx]

Great idea!  That's true about borax and boric acid.  Maybe one of those
larger (several gallon) cheap pumping spray applicators that they sell for
pesticides would make the job easy. This could be a preventative measure
while building too.  Or, if one didn't want to spray their cob wall with
borax water (might slow down drying) why couldn't they make a batch of mushy
cob and put borax in, and just put a very, very thin layer on the inside
surface of each day's wall while building? With the borax in it should keep
for about a week. People put borax in Alis (natural clay paint), with a
ratio of one cup borax per 5 gal. of Alis (dissolved in one gal. hot water
first).  A lot of work to put it in cob, but might be worth it where people
are extremely allergic to molds in general.  Probably the only mold you
might need to worry about would be what would grow on the inside surface of
wall while the cob is drying.  Finish plaster probably doesn't stay wet long
enough to grow much mold, certainly not the toxic stuff (see below).

All black looking molds aren't the toxic *Stachybotrys chartarum, *that
everyone worries about.  I recently found lots of mold growing on a ton of
wet cardboard laying on a wet (dirt) basement floor so I did thorough
reading on this topic.  I found that *Stachybotrys *needs a lot of moisture
(a flood helps, or continuous wet, or 90% humidity), it may also have a
greenish tint, is said to be kind of slimy or greasy to the touch (spores
are embedded in thin layer of slime), and it grows on cellulose containing
materials (wood, paper, drywall, cardboard, fabric).  I couldn't positively
ID my mold without a microscope, so just sprayed dilute Clorox water
liberally on it before bagging and removing.  Since I didn't suffer any
symptoms (headaches, etc) from this job, it probably wasn't the bad stuff.
AS for cob, I can't imagine that there would be enough straw (which
certainly does contain cellulose) exposed on the surface of a cob wall to
grow this mold in large quantities.  A light clay straw wall might be
another story.

Knowledge is power.


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> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:32:23 -0500
> From: Dean Sherwin <costman at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [Cob] Cob) Mold and fungus
> To: coblist at deatech.com
> Message-ID: <0KVV00CWTXY0VLE4 at vms173013.mailsrvcs.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
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> I did not see anyone mention borax or boric acid.  I sprayed boric
> acid on the lower 3' of my (green) house to discourage mold as well
> as termites.....................
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