[Cob] Earthen Floor Question

[Amanda Peck]

My floor was 1 1/4 inch in one layer.  It did crack in a couple of places 
when they first got walked on, but each of them sounded hollow, rather as 
though we hadn't pounded it down enough, and left an air gap.  And the 
cracks were in places where pounding the mix down was awkward.

My sample making left a LOT to be desired--not big enough, too few, but some 
at least were on sand instead of whatever container I was using.  On the 
other hand we did a pretty good job of pounding down the mix.

I'm still not sure how the rubber patterned mats we embedded in high wear 
spots are going to work, though.

We did use wood shavings--horse bedding--for fiber.  Straw was unavailable 
locally at that time of year, and I thought that the wood shavings might 
have more strength then sawdust.

But remember that this was one small room.

......................
Royce wrote (snipped):

  We did many samples in framed 3'x4' plywood sections without cracking.  We
chose our earthen floor mix from the one that did not crack nor pull away 
from
the edges but the actual floor we did still cracked.  Since then we have
redone the same test samples over compacted roadbase (rather than on 
plywood)
and have had quite the different results from those we did over plywood.