Cob: light clay in the catskills

[David Atmoweg]

Darel;

 Thanks for the encouragement.  The light clay has been good to us, although we found it 
harder to work with than we anticipated.  We had two difficulties that we didn't wholly 
appreciate at first.  One was the matter of working within the constraints of the 
pre-existing wood-frame house.  this place was built long before people here really 
insulated at all, and isn't designed for it, and the other is that our soil is more silt and less 
clay than we thought.  But we went ahead, fought the mold in the summer, won, and have 
been happy with the insulation and the surface.  
The nice thing about the joint clay/wool combo is that we can get the wool into spaces 
(like the narrow sides of the window frames ((whichwere cut into the house one hundred 
years after it was built))) where light-clay would be impractical.

-d.

http://www.flamingbunny.com

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From: "D.J. Henman" <henman at it.to-be.co.jp>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 16:31:18 +0900
Subject: wall insulation

I was glad to see that you used light clay for you walls.   It is also
similar to the way Japanese insulated their roofs.   Their walls are a
little more soil than straw, but they are finished off with a fine
earthen rendering or soil and lime mixture or a sand and lime or pure
lime with some fibre.

Carry on the what looks like fun and good work.

Cheers,
   Darel Henman


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