[Cob] Thanks for the ideas

[Mary Lou McFarland]

While I was reading your suggestions it brought some new questions to mind 
and thought I'd throw them out there while everything is fresh and I can 
still read all my notes.  sometimes I just look at  things I've written down 
and think, What the hell was I thinking?  anyway,  AMANDA..I have thought 
some about doing the roof first.  Wasn't sure about the best way to do it, 
though I was leaning toward kind of doing a pole/timberframe system but I 
was concerned about how to get the longer beams up  I also wasn't certain if 
I should do the uprights on a pier or on a footing resting on the rubble 
trench since I will be doing  the trench to support the wall anyway.  Also 
toyed with the idea of doing the uprights so they would only be exposed on 
the interior  for a little architectural interest.  since hearing from 
Sasha, I'm excited to try a masonry stove and would like to have a radiant  
floor heating system as back up.  The jury is still out on that.  still 
reading and researching.   QUINN...about strawbale, I did check into it . I 
talked to a lady in town and she said she had friends who built  a strawbale 
house and it was rotting right away.  she's a realtor and she never did give 
me the name of her friends so perhaps she wasn't being totallly truthful 
with me either.  I've also noticed lately that some strawbale  projects 
built in places other than the southwest have put taller footings in and one 
I noticed put a moisture barrier under the first course of bales so perhaps 
that fixed the problem.  Another concern I had was I wasn't sure how long I 
would need to let the bales settle before plastering .  I read an article in 
MOTHER and a lady in that built a strawbale.  I don't remember how long she 
waited but I remember it struck me as being a fairly long time and I was 
worried about the bales absorbing moisture from the air  during settling.  
I'm sure I'm not up to speed on bale building so I could be wrong....it 
won't be the first time ha.  I am flattered that you believe me capable of 
lifting  a couple hundred bales by myself for the height of eight feet.  I 
should warn you now that I have not eaten any spinach lately.  I fear that 
you are not really Quinn but my husband posing  as an adviser in hopes of 
collecting the life insurance money for when I topple to the ground and am 
bombarded with bales.  I believe I will learn the soldering thing.  You'll 
be the first I contact when I burn off my eyebrows.  When you mentioned that 
you worked at Ace hardware, it reminded me that Home Depot  does little 
afternoon long workshops on such topics and some of them are specifically 
designed for women so I will call and see how the clinic workshops are 
shaping up.  SHANNON.. thanks for addressing the wet on dry issue, that was 
my biggest concern.  How long, in your experience does it take for the cob 
to dry?  I was wondering..If I build up the outside of the edges of the wall 
and basically flood my surface befor e tarping would it possibly  be the 
right consistency still when I return a week later?  You said that you built 
your place completly alone.  How big is it? and what shape? and how did you 
manage the roof?  About the sawdust/biobag answer to the "little room"..I 
have an idea for  an organic outhouse I want to try.  I'd like to use a 
large Rubbermaid type tub and start with a thin layer of soil with a fair 
amount of red worms also known as manure worms, occasionally, layer in some 
more soil amd perhaps kitchen scraps.  When its half full rotate it out of 
circulation,start another tub in the outhouse while the worms work on the 
one that is "off duty".  My hope is that I'll go straight from humanure to 
worm castings.  In the house, I'll have to be more conventional because I 
already have a husband that thinks I'm bats.  I'd also like to have my 
children visit and not be scared off by the plumbing or lack of.  If the 
outhouse thing works as well as I hope then the indoor plumbing will only 
get  real usage in the winter.  I'd also like to live out my days in this 
place and I don't know if I'll be up to hoisting biobags when I'm eighty and 
my chidren want to put me in a home.  My real hope is that if I do this 
right I'll win over other people to alternative methods.  Not everyone is 
cut out to be a purist, but if I can convince even 50 other people to 
attempt to reduce their usage of the standard system then that will probably 
be one of the biggest environmental impacts I will ever make for the planet. 
If I make it not look so scarey then perhaps each of my 50 will convince 
another 50,   Now if I try to talk them into a sawdust and five gallon 
bucket then I don't think I'll convert too many people.  By the time you 
read a magazine article those buckets put a heck of a dent in one's 
posterior. I did remember about putting in the holes.  That was in one of 
the books I read.  I was thinking about getting a couple of old pairs of 
golf shoes or track cleats from the rerun store or Salvation Army and just 
beat the crap out of my fresh surface with them.  I also thought about 
taking a video of my flailings and selling copies to finance my project.  I 
want to tell evveryone THANKS so much for taking the time to get a note off 
to me.  You're encouragement means even more then the advice.  I'll let you 
know when I break ground and hopefully I'll have wonderful progress reports. 
  Thanks again, M'Lou

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