[Cob] Mosaics in the shower

[Jill Hogan]

  The stabiled bricks might be the problem. If I am right they have 
cement in them. We do a lot of resortration in McGregor the village I 
live in. McGregor is the best preserved Victorian Villages in South 
Africa and we have the highest percentage of earth houses in SA. We are 
running a resortation programme as many of the houses are in serious 
need of repair and all of them are losing plaster with cement in it. 
This belief that cement makes stronger we are daily seeing is a myth. It 
is not compatable with mud and parts company with the walls. My house 
not only has lime render walls but I have lime rendered the roof as 
well. There are pictures on my home page www.mat.org.za This roof has 
been up for about four years, but we paint it every year before the 
rainy season, with the mixture  I mentioned earlier, . Also because of 
our extremes in temp it does throw out cracks but the lime paint closes 
these up. I work on the prinicipal  that stalagmites and stalagitites 
are formed by lime rich water dripping leaving the lime behind and as 
lime hardens by taking carbon dioxide out of the air so it once again 
becomes lime stone, the roof must eventually become like rock Whew, /I 
hope!!!!/

On 2010/08/18 09:23 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
> Hi Jill thanks. That's good to know about your use the mud/clay 
> addition. Have you been using this technique with good results over 
> time on surfaces exposed to rain fall? I'd much rather work with a 
> thicker mix if possible. But I need to do the south southwest face of 
> our place which has no overhangs and I wonder if it will withstand the 
> wind driven rains. Most of our weather comes from the south west. Our 
> place is stabilized adobe and the stabilization with asphalt 
> interferes with the bonding of the mud or plaster mix. I haven't tried 
> a mostly lime sand mix on this area. The plaster I put of this face to 
> try was mostly a cob mix minus the long straw. I wet the bricks and 
> rubbed to get a surface slurry before applying the mud. Most of test 
> area came off in 2 years. But I must say it didn't apply multiple 
> coats and there was no clay heavy final coat to keep the moisture away.
>
> Ron
> Living and playing outside the box.
>
> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>
> On Aug 18, 2010, at 12:45 PM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>
>>  We soak prickly pear leaves for a couple of weeks if we can and 
>> thenstrain the leaves out and add hydrated lime. We leave this for as 
>> long as possible making sure it is always covered with water. When we 
>> want to render or plaster we take a bucket of this lime to three 
>> buckets of a good building sand with a good varient of particle size, 
>> and a half a bucket of mud as we have a high clay contect here. If 
>> the render cracks there is too much clay, if it becomes sand to much 
>> sand. We adjust the mud mixture accordingly. We put our render on 
>> with a plastering trowel onto a wet wall and it stays beautifully
>>
>> On 2010/08/17 07:08 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
>>> You didn't mention sand, but I'm assuming that's part of your 
>>> render. I am unaccustomed to handling plaster like mediums that are 
>>> so wet. I tend to want to add some mud to stiffen it up. I did that 
>>> on my cob oven. It stayed in place ok. But for keeping the weather 
>>> out I don't think added mud is a good idea. Is your plaster mix 
>>> pretty wet when you work with it?. I did a little of this with a 
>>> commercial plaster using a hoc [ or hod I forget ] and trowel and 
>>> once it hits the wall it starts to stiffen pretty quickly so I guess 
>>> I could used to it.
>>> Living and playing outside the box.
>>>
>>> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>>>
>>> On Aug 17, 2010, at 6:00 AM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Using gloves we pick the leaves and then cut them up into a 
>>>> barrel. Wetop it up with water and leave the leaves brewing for 
>>>> three weeks at least. We then sive the leaves out and slake our 
>>>> lime int  the prickly pear water. We get a lovely creamy render mix 
>>>> that very rarely cracks. I also use this mixture watered down and 
>>>> with salt added for a paint over my buildings. As we live in the 
>>>> semi desert with intense heat in summer we get massive expansion 
>>>> and contraction so paint the buildings every year, just before the 
>>>> rainy season in winter,  I am in South Africa in what we call the 
>>>> Karoo.
>>>>
>>>> On 2010/08/16 10:22 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
>>>>> Please let us know how it holds up. And sometime let us know how 
>>>>> you went about harvesting the cactus. We have lot's of that here 
>>>>> in New Mexico. It's a big part of the animal food chain. People 
>>>>> too. The fruit is sweet, people make jelly and wine with it. 
>>>>> Probably where you are too. Are you not in Africa somewhere? You [ 
>>>>> and everyone on the planet ] might want to take a look at this link.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Just when you got your mind around the implications of peak oil. 
>>>>> There is this from...  From the Wilderness:
>>>>> [Some months ago, concerned by a Paris statement made by Professor 
>>>>> Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton regarding his concern about the 
>>>>> impact of Peak Oil and Gas on fertilizer production, I tasked 
>>>>> FTW's Contributing Editor for Energy, Dale Allen Pfeiffer to start 
>>>>> looking into what natural gas shortages would do to fertilizer 
>>>>> production costs. His investigation led him to look at the 
>>>>> totality of food production in the US. Because the US and Canada 
>>>>> feed much of the world, the answers have global implications.]
>>>>>
>>>>> It's hard to mix cob when there is no water. So it is extremely 
>>>>> relevant to our passion for mud. It is long and dark and important 
>>>>> that more people are aware of how these well known forces in 
>>>>> nature can feed off each other to create the perfect debacle. It 
>>>>> just takes just a little more heat to get things rolling.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Ron
>>>>> Living and playing outside the box.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>>>>>
>>>>> On Aug 16, 2010, at 1:47 PM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  Ron thanks so much will cover again and agin with  prickly pear 
>>>>>> juice, have it fermenting at the moment
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2010/08/16 08:32 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
>>>>>>> More prickly pear juice. If you want to keep it natural, you 
>>>>>>> could try a mix of maybe kaolin clay and marble dust or the like 
>>>>>>> as grog to set it in, would give you a fairly light color.  
>>>>>>> altho you might have to work from bottom to top and allow some 
>>>>>>> drying time to keep it from slumping. Not sure how sticky that 
>>>>>>> mix would be. There are many glues that are from natural sources 
>>>>>>> that might help in reducing the setup time. A person with better 
>>>>>>> answers is Carol Crews in Toas. Great lady. Just search her name 
>>>>>>> on the web she is very nice to talk to.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ron
>>>>>>> Living and playing outside the box.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Aug 16, 2010, at 1:14 AM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  Hi we want to put mosaics in the shower of Little Cottage. Two 
>>>>>>>> walls are cob and one is wattle and daub. All three are cover 
>>>>>>>> with a lime render. We add prickly pear juice to the render 
>>>>>>>> which acts as waterproofing. What do we use to set the mosaics 
>>>>>>>> to the wall and do we need to seal them and if we do with what 
>>>>>>>> do we seal them. Appreciate any advice on this.
>>>>>>>> Many thanks
>>>>>>>> Jill
>>>>>>>> You can see the little cottage on www.mat.org.za
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>>>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
>>>>>>>> www.mat.org.za
>>>>>>>> 023 625 1533
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Be the change you wish to see"
>>>>>>>> Mohandas Ghandi
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
>>>>>> www.mat.org.za
>>>>>> 023 625 1533
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Be the change you wish to see"
>>>>>> Mohandas Ghandi
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you do not wish to receive these mails, email us with 
>>>>>> unsubscribe in the subject. Thanks
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
>>>>
>>>> McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
>>>> www.mat.org.za
>>>> 023 625 1533
>>>>
>>>> "Be the change you wish to see"
>>>> Mohandas Ghandi
>>>>
>>>> If you do not wish to receive these mails, email us with 
>>>> unsubscribe in the subject. Thanks
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
>>
>> McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
>> www.mat.org.za
>> 023 625 1533
>>
>> "Be the change you wish to see"
>> Mohandas Ghandi
>>
>> If you do not wish to receive these mails, email us with unsubscribe 
>> in the subject. Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>


-- 
We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.

McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
www.mat.org.za
023 625 1533

"Be the change you wish to see"
Mohandas Ghandi

If you do not wish to receive these mails, email us with unsubscribe in the subject. Thanks