Cob mini bale alternative

[bufflocp at telusplanet.net]

Hi Uwe; 

No, no one did tell me that, and unfortunately there was no such thing as a
"browser" available to me in the good ol' days, otherwise I hope I would
have used it as wisely as you. Now I'm going to try my hand at a Cob
structure, and I sure am trying to avoid making any other dumb mistakes.
What the heck, though. It was just part of the fun, really.  Ron

At 08:48 PM 3/11/98 PST, you wrote:
>
>Hi Ron,
>
>apparently nobody ever told you that "hot" lime has to be slaked first.
After that it's fantastic. The way I learned about it was searching with my
browser for "lime+plaster" and "lime+stucco". Read all the posts of
strawbale at crest.org, and after that you'll almost be a lime expert. Really,
it's worth the trouble.
>
>Uwe
>
>----------
>>
>> Will, hello to you too.
>>
>> Hot lime has been prepared in such a way that it has a chemical affinity
>> for water. Dry salt is like this too. If left in an open pile in a humid
>> room, it will absorb water vapor from the air  (it hydrates, which is just
>> the opposite of "dehydrates"). In the case of some chemicals, in this case
>> lime, when the water is taken on, energy is released in the form of heat
>> due to a stronger bond being formed with the hydrogen part of the water
>> molcule. (You might remember the term "exothermic reaction" from your
>> high-school chemistry.)
>>
>> Hydrated lime, according to our local experts, is the non-hot variety and
>> is more commonly used these days. It is chemically more neutral than hot
lime.
>>
>> In any case, either form of lime is just fine for mixing up a batch of
>> morter, stucco or plaster,  with the hot variety being quite handy if there
>> is a need to keep your mixture warm for a longer period of time, such as
>> during a cool-weather job. Another excellent use for hot lime is down the
>> outhouse hole. It is a rather powerful base (opposite of acid) and will
>> speed organic chemical decomposition as well as control the fly problem. It
>> will, however, also burn your skin slowly or your eyes rapidly (thus
>> controlling the sight problem) if you are careless.
>>
>> Some few years ago (not as few as I'd like), I ran into some difficulty
>> when building my stackwall (cordwood) home. We had been using the
>> lime-sawdust mixture as insulation for quite awhile, and had depleted the
>> local supply of hydrated lime. The store-guy convinced me that his hot lime
>> would be great, killing all those nasty insects and even helping to insure
>> that the interior wall space would be extra-dry as construction proceeded.
>> We used a bag of it to mix with our dry sawdust and used the mixture later
>> that day to insulate the next 10 foot spiral section of our wall.
>>
>> Fortunately, the smell of smoke awakened me that night. Also fortunately, I
>> ignored my inclination to dismiss the odor as having been blown in from one
>> of the distant forest fires that were burning that summer. I, dressed in my
>> briefs, located the hot spot on the wall and worked from 3:00 a.m. to dawn
>> sledging down the better part of a week's labor as I tracked down the
>> smoldering fire which had started as a result of spontaneous combustion.
>> The hot lime (AKA quick lime) had pulled enough moisture  out of the "dry"
>> sawdust to partially hydrate and the resultant heat had nowhere to go.
>> Such, however, are the ways we learn. (Me, anyway.) For instance, I learned
>> to sleep with my pants on.
>>
>> Now, earth walls won't burn away to nothing, but I'm not sure you want to
>> be the one to prove or disprove that a cob wall cannot be harmed by
>> excessive heat. On the other hand, maybe you could be the first person on
>> the block with a raku home.   :-)    Ron
>>
>>
>>
>> At 09:42 AM 3/11/98 -0800, you wrote:
>> >
>> >Hi Ron,
>> >
>> >Could you explain the "Not the hot variety" comment? Is it the lime that
>> >heats up? Why does this happen?
>> >
>> >Regards,
>> >Will
>> >
>> >>-----Original Message-----
>> >>From:	bufflocp [SMTP:bufflocp at telusplanet.net]
>> >>Sent:	Monday, March 09, 1998 10:25 AM
>> >>To:	coblist; WFIRSTBR
>> >>Subject:	Re: Cob mini bale alternative
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Hello!
>> >>           Your honeycomb idea is intriguing. You might also consider
>> >>sawdust or shavings as an insulator if either is readily available to
you.
>> >>In any case, as insurance against the possibility of insect infestation,
>> >>give some serious thought to including lime as one of the constituents of
>> >>any dry-mixed insulation (stack-wallers do this). Not the hot variety,
>> >>though. It would heat up inside the wall and could cause problems. Ron
>> Hanson
>> >>
>> >
>> >
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