Cob Another one for you

[Grace Benjamin]

Rog;

This sound curiously like a Cord wood home....

Grace

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>From owner-coblist at deatech.com Wed Sep 16 20:22:21 1998
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From: "Rog" <rogb at net2000.com.au>
To: <coblist at deatech.com>
Subject: Cob Another one for you
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 11:09:39 +1000
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Good morning sunshines,

Got chatting to some cobber about cobbin' last night over a beer.  Ok, I
lied, there were several and many beers involved, but that's not the 
point.

This person hit me with another concept.  The deal is:  Collect as much 
in
the way of off-cut timber as you can, or move through a logging coup 
just
before they burn it and remove any 'useless' timber that's between about 
4
and 10 inches in diameter.  Debark thoroughly.
Cut to about 18 inch lengths (assuming this is the width of your
wall-to-be) and lay them along your wall line with no particular 
reference
to sizes, shapes, etc., though do make sure they all run perpendicular 
to
the wall line (much like a stack of fire-wood, really).
Plug the gaps with cob, then do another layer.  Getting the picture?
With this technique, the way I imagine it, one could reduce the amount 
of
actual cob material (be it traditional, saw-dust, or whatever), to about 
25
- 50% of a 'solid' cob wall, whilst also making a lighter wall with 
higher
compressive strength (it's pretty hard to squash a bit of wood and it's
bloody hard to make it fall apart with a high-pressure hose).  
Furthermore,
a few bottles could be interspersed here and there, and one could cob 
all
the way to the top in one day as the hydro-static pressure is restricted 
to
the 'micro-climate' between each chunk of wood -- it's the bits of wood
that to the collective weight supporting.

Also, I'm guessing that in even a lightly-treed area, the trees cut down 
to
make a space for one's house would provide more than enough in-fill, as
_almost_everything_can_be_used.

Once completed, the wall could be covered with your preferred finish to
keep the animals and elements out.

Better go do some 'real' work now, Rog.



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