[Cob] surprized by failure- Bathroom and kitchen

[Dirtcheapbuilder-Charmaine]

HI I am really surprized by the failure of the lime plaster ( if that 
is truly the reason)  in the bathroom.

I ALSO have a small North facing bath, cold all year long, and in 
shadow from a roof. I too feared mold.  Bu I did a  Chinese recipe I 
have talked about before and promote- it is lime soaked with shredded 
office paper, a bit of sand, and no  fibers . I thought the paper  
would cause problems, maybe something already in the apper, etc 
harbored  mold ot germs. but the soaking in a lime tub for 2 weeks must 
have killed off anything.

Anyway I  had torn down  the original owner built walls to the studs,( 
5 layers of increasing ugly and weird wallpaper and paneling came out- 
ugh)  installed a greenboard for moist areas like kitchen & bath - and 
used both sticky mesh web and no mesh,  and just plastered over the 
walls about 3/8" -1/2" thick.

FIRST I did all raound the shower stall, if was going to FAIL  I wanted 
it to be there where the most amount of daily moisture showed up.   The 
bath is used just once a day by me,  maybe twice, so it may be your 
obsevance of a large bath is correct. no fan, just a window 1"-2" open.

But I have not had one problem of any kind with these walls, I tried 
different additives, like a pink  kaolinite clay straight from the 
ground, and applied it with various tools and gloved hands to the 
walls.  it is perfect...  I never sealed it with anything... the walls 
need to permit the moisture to come and go...the lime has turned back 
to limestone, so I saw no need to  cover it or coat it over.

  It may be simple ventilation issue or an extra fan needed during use 
by many people.  it may be there is just  too much  wetness and enough 
"something" for mold to grow.  People shed  skin flakes all day long, 
thats what most household dust is... could be as simple as that, and 
the house always being moist.

I dont think it is the lime failing...mold has to have a medium, it may 
be  that alone that does it,    I'm not an expert on mold, anyone else 
have input on this?


Charmaine Taylor Publishing
www.dirtcheapbuilder.com  www.papercrete.com
PO BOX 375   CUTTEN CA 95534  USA
Tel:  707-441-1632   11-4 PST

On Sep 6, 2007, at 3:25 AM, jane at kirstinelund.dk wrote:

As for the bathroom / kitchen plaster the solution we have tried untill
now is good quality lime plaster coated with tung oil and then painted
with a painting based in linseed varnish. This works very well in a
private bathroom in one of the houses, but in our common house bathroom 
it
has turned out very badly indeed as we have mould growing in more and 
more
places.

The reasons are probably many: The house is a 150 year old brick house
with somwhat moist walls, the bathroom faces north, the room is very 
small
and too many people use it so it is comstantly moist, even with a lot of
ventilation.

So I can recommend the solution for not too small bathrooms in new
well-drained houses, used by relatively few people.