[Cob] CodesFor my part, I don't mind going through the hoops - Thatching material

[Gergo Szekely]

Hi Thatchers,

In my home town in Hungary many of the adobe houses still have thatched roofs. 
When my mother was a little girl all they had around in the town were adobe 
houses and almost all of them had thatched roof. They were all made using 
Phragmites (Phragmites australis) - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phragmites_australis. The material was used for 
hundreds of years.

This plant grows almost everywhere in Hungary where there is standing or very 
slow flow water around. It is a perennial grass, so after they cut it in the 
winter (as the water freezes it becomes easier to harvest) it grows back the 
next year. Phragmites is a very nice resource if it is managed well, but it can 
get out of hands and push out most of the other plant life from the area if it 
is left alone and the ecosystem is not healthy around it.

I don't have much experience with Phragmites in the US so I used wikipedia to 
find out more about its growth habit here. They say it exists in the US, but it 
is possible the type is weaker here than the type in Europe. However if there is 
a wetland around you, you might be able to manage getting some for free, if they 
consider it as a problem, and make a test roof to see if it is good enough 
material. If it works well, it might make sense to grow it at home in the pound 
you dug when you built the cob house. Once you have Phragmites you will have it 
for a long time and you can make many many roofs over time.

In Hungary there are still people around who make thatched roofs. I really hope 
to meet some of them and learn how to make this amazing roof. Here are some 
pictures: http://acoperisdinstuf.ro/galleryhu.html

Please keep us updated about you thatching experiment.

Best luck,
--
Gergo


________________________________
From: Shannon Dealy <dealy at deatech.com>
To: Yun Que <yunk88 at hotmail.com>
Cc: coblist at deatech.com
Sent: Wed, September 29, 2010 11:53:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Cob] CodesFor my part, I don't mind going through the hoops

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010, Yun Que wrote:

> 
> Cat here ... thanks for some sanity and good solid thinking!
> 
> Anyone know what kind of Rye is suitable for thatch roofing?  Finished a book 
>by John Syemore... (not sure if that's the right spelling)...He suggests Rye for 
>a wintering over crop in a 4 rotation planting.  Rye attaches nitrogen to the 
>soil and the straw is used for thatch...
> Like to know if there is a specific variety to sow?

I don't know a specific variety (though I might have a reference that lists it 
somewhere around here), however, with wheat straw you need to plant the older 
varieties as modern wheat has been bred to put all it's energy into the grain, 
resulting in stalks that are too short and too weak to be used for thatching.  
Assuming the same problem applies to rye, I would tend to look for a variety 
which was being grown 100+ years ago.

FWIW.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
Phone: (800) 467-5820 |          - Natural Building Instruction -
   or: (541) 929-4089 |                  www.deatech.com

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