[Cob] Feedback on cobwood?

[Sky Orndoff]

Hi everyone!

We (my friends Kyle, McKenzie, and myself of EarthArtBuild) here in Montana are 
in the process of building a cobwood (like Rob Roy's Cordwood) addition to a 
conventionally framed building.  We have already built two other cordwood 
buildings on site, and due to Montana's extremely cold winters don't really 
appreciate the thermal mass.  Once it cools down, it's hard to heat up.  And we 
aren't around all the time to keep the rocket mass heater burning.  So we've 
tried to minimize the amount of thermal mass in this building.  


The design is this:  4 inches of cob, 10 inches cellulose insulation, 6 inches 
of cob.  This sandwich is penetrated frequently by a 21 inch log round.  The 
walls are going up, and that's the way they're going to go up, unless someone 
says "STOP, RECONSIDER" in a way that's truly convincing.  But feedback and 
predictions on functionality would be very interesting; please comment!  The 
room is small (8 feet diameter, about 3/4 of a circle) so the rocket mass heater 
which we've already made should work quite nicely.  If you want to see pictures 
and video of the project, check out www.earthartbuild.wordpress.com.  And please 
comment or reply via the forum or the website.  Thanks!

Sky Orndoff, 

EarthArtBuild