[Cob] RE: Susan's foundation

[Amanda Peck]

The straw bale people seem to have settled on bamboo as reinforcement to 
hold the walls TOGETHER, not necessarily to the foundation.  That's a neat 
solution.  Flexible, strong, even the same plant family.  Might work for cob 
as well (both have straw), but decidedly not with what any of us use as a 
(lower) bond beam or foundation.

It may be too much of a screaming pain to use bamboo horizontally (or 
vertically) in cob, though.

My first thought was stalagtites/mites for cob-foundation tying.  Too 
brittle, not renewable enough.  But surely some sort of ceramic could be 
formulated--flexible, as such things go, with all kinds of little barbs to 
hold into cob and concrete.  High tech and really expensive if an existing 
material isn't suitable.
.............

Barbara wrote (snipped):
That being said, those of us in seismic zones still need a means of tying
the top plate and roof-bearing assembly to the foundation, and at this
point, the best solution I've seen is rebar, though it's far from perfect.
The cob will still fall away from the rebar, unlike concrete, but perhaps
enough of it will stay together that you'll remain safe or have time to get
out of the building.  Until we have more seismic testing, as has been done
with straw bale, we just don't know enough about how cob will behave in
various types of earthquakes for me to feel safe with cob alone.  As a
component in a hybrid system, yes.

......We'd love to hear from anyone with better solutions.  John Fordice has 
spoken at some length
about the need to tie the plate and the foundation together, and about his 
reservations about combining cob and other methods/materials (dissimilar 
properties, unpredictable results).