Cob: Cob - Dirt Floor?

[Amanda Peck]

A couple of different ways to do this.  You can put radiant heat tubes in 
the floor the way these guys did.  Horrible long URL--site posted for the 
roof design last night on the cob list.  Maybe the quotation marks will 
help.  If you go back to "round straw" you can see a lot of the building.

"http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/bolo1942/lst?.dir=/Round+Straw+Bale+with+Reciprocal+Roof/Floor+earthen+hydronic&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/"

You can also do a rammed earth floor, probably with some kind of perimeter 
insulation on the outside of the footings.  If you're careful you might be 
able to put the heat tubes in that as well, but you are going to be dropping 
something very like a hunk of telephone pole down on it until it doesn't 
dent.

Or, you probably have to be pretty careful about walls, but brick or tile 
set in sand over insulation works as well too.

This site (I checked google with floor rammed earth, be prepared to ignore 
ALL the rammed earth building--you'll find some stuff from the archives 
here) is a pretty general one on the subject of floors.

http://www.weblife.org/cob/cob_042.html

Shannon's right about searching with "earthen floors."  Not much junk on the 
first page.

the Dancing Rabbit community has nice narratives about what they are doing, 
in this case, a rammed earth floor, including what they finished it with, 
there are other things--including what you've been pounding with a bunch of 
lime in it.

http://www.dancingrabbit.org/newsletter/Newsletter0701-floors.html



........
Magan McAleese asks:

After all this talk about roofs, I have a question about floors.
My structural engineer says that dirt floors can be quite nice, they can be 
packed down and then (glazed?) not quite sure. I looked on the net and all I 
get is basements/root cellars. I would like to know if any of you 
alternative housebuilding people have heard of this and if it's nice. I am 
interested in it because dirt has a much nicer price tag than does cement. 
But I fear it would it be cold I'm in Canada and dirt gets cold up here. 
Please let me know.






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