Cob: Questions about wool

[David Atmoweg]

C and L;

Some tangential experience regarding your queries.

We ordered batts of clean, carded, borated wool insulation from 
(as far as I've found) the only source for the stuff on this continent: 
Custom Woolen Mills, in Western Canada.  They make great thick 
socks, too.  The stuff is pleasant to work with, reasonably priced, 
and has suffered no insect damage, despite being exposed.  Of 
course, it's not anything like as cheap as raw wool.  

A friend of ours who raises sheep in Vermont is stock-piling raw 
wool for a building project that he keeps putting off.  In his 
experience, the stuff can sit around forever unwashed and be 
ignored by pests, for whom the sheepiness is simply 
overwhelming.  It might be overwhelming in your home, as well, 
sadly.  If you were to use it in a closed attic, say, I think you could 
sprinkle a pound of borax here and there and it would outlast your 
home, but your attic would smell very mammalian.  We're living in a 
two-hundred-year-old cabin, where space is at a premium, and so 
we needed something we could live next to.

We used light-straw insulation downstairs, and had planned 
panels of the same for the ceiling, but the stuff might be 
light-straw, but it isn't light.  I had tried to find a non-New Zealand 
source  of wool insulation for months without luck, and then 
Custom Woolen Mills appeared, and not a moment too soon, as 
we just had the worst Catskills winter in easily thirty years.

Good luck with your project.

-d.

www.flamingbunny.org

---
> I am trying to complete my research as to whether or not to use 
raw wool in
> my ceiling. I would very much like to hear from people using wool 
as to
> whether it has been worth it and what problems they have 
encountered and how
> they overcame it.
> 
> I have access to sufficient wool that is currently being stored in a 
wool
> warehouse in plastic perforated wool tubes. Some of my initial 
research is:
> 
> a. Corresponded with Jan Stern's mom Rita in South Africa. They 
placed wool
> into garbage bags with a cup of borax. She no longer lives in the 
house but
> after five years no insects have penetrated the bags and no borax 
has
> spilled out. She was not able or willing to open the bags which is 
what I
> really wanted to see the condition of the wool sitting in plastic 
bags-not
> breathing so to speak.
> 
> b. spoke with the wool cooperative manager and he is skeptical 
about the
> wool not being consumed by moths as they get moths in their 
warehouses and
> bees nest in it. In speaking with a wool grower she felt that flies 
would
> not be interested in wool sheared from the animal, unless they 
are after the
> manure embedded which by the smell of the sample wool I have 
it manure has
> some presence there. I heard a story from a friend who stayed in 
a cob
> cottage over night and he woke up to tons of flies and he was 
told it was
> from the wool.
> 
> c. In speaking with another wool grower she says she doesn't 
have moth
> problems and some wasps have entered the bags that are 
open. She hangs her
> bags from her rafters in a barn. She feels part of her solution is 
the cool
> Wisconsin winters help.
> 
> I am wondering whether raw wool will be embedded with moth 
larve? I was told
> you can kill critters by exposing them to 130 degree heat or 
extreeme cold
> temperatures. Cleaning the wool isn't an option for me....too 
much wool, too
> much work big time.
> 
> d. I spoke with an Irishman who put washed wool into his attic 
and was quite
> please. No mention of bugs, he did treat it with borax. Another 
wooll grower
> thought that by not washing the wool and keeping the lanolin 
percentage high
> it would help keep away moths.
> 
> I had a thought of placing the wool inbetween my trusses and 
then placing
> typar/tyvek over the wool and stapling this material to the sides of 
the
> trusses and slanting it toward drain vents. Place extra fine bug 
screening
> over the vents and make sure the ridge vent openings were 
screened as well,
> since we would have air space above the typar for venting. My 
thought was
> this could act like a bag keeping bugs out. This wool has quite 
an odor too
> it so I imagine it to be a powerful attractant to bugs. The other 
purpose of
> the typar would be to catch any condensation that may form on 
my plywood
> sheathing and send it to a drain.
> 
> I have also thought of using tight weave burlap bags instead of 
plastic
> bags. Bags in general make me nervous as I wonder how 
difficult it would be
> to get an effective insulation coverage. I imagine I would need to 
have them
> be relatively thin and overlapping each other.
> 
> Thats the extent of my research and I need further info from you 
all to help
> me conclude some things. Too wool or not too wool! I am on 
digest and often
> working too long so please forgive if I don't get back right off.
> Chuck in Wisconsin.

-- 
_______________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup