Cob: Re:apology re dumb & etc

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 Otherfish at aol.com wrote:

[snip]
> cob you need to make your walls monolithicly thick.  To make a safe double 
> wall will mean building two THICK walls.  Real massive !!!!  Two thinner cob 
> walls with an insulation break in between can be potentiallly dangerous 
> structurally.  This means double wide foundations, way wide lintels, way wide 
> top of wall bond beam in seismic areas, tying the roof into two walls & 
> probably more issues not immediatly apparent.  
[snip]

John,

I've been playing with this idea for a couple of years (though I haven't
tried to build anything along these lines yet), and you have overlooked
another possibility.  You could go with one thick structural wall on the
interior, and a much thinner exterior wall that is only required to
support itself and enclose the outer insulation (it could even be lightly
coupled to the structural wall for added strength).  Originally I was
thinking cob for the exterior wall, but after a number of discussions with
other cobbers, concluded that using a wattle and daub approach would be
stronger for a thin non-supporting retaining wall.  I can't remember who
first suggested an approach along these lines to me, but it was most
likely either Michael Smith or Kiko Denzer.

Shannon C. Dealy      |                    DeaTech Research Inc.
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