[Cob] insulated north wall - cob +straw bales or what?

[drub]

Hi Robert,

A friend, in the area of Santa Cruz, CA, built his shop out of 
load-bearing hay bales.  Dimensions are about 25' by 30'.  He used 
stucco both inside and out.  He runs his cabinet shop in there and loves it.

So far, I'm a lurker, with respect to cob building.  Our transition 
plans call for relocation this spring.  So, could be cobbing for real by 
next summer or fall.

We're thinking of a hybrid solution, as you describe.  North walls in 
hay bale, for better insulation.  Other walls, cob.

All the best,
David


Robert Alcock wrote:
> Our cob cabin in northern Spain is pretty much complete and we're making 
> plans for the main house, which is also going to be essentially a 
> cob-walled structure. But we've been debating back-and-forth the options 
> for the north wall of the building. One option is load-bearing straw 
> bale with cob plaster, but we are a bit wary of using straw bales as a 
> load-bearing structure in our wet climate. Another option we considered 
> was a fully load-bearing cob wall (maybe a foot - 35cm thick) with straw 
> bale insulation outside - but this ends up with a very thick wall. Then 
> there's the option of using flakes of straw or straw-clay outside the 
> wall as insulation - but how to implement this?
>
> I'm sure plenty of people must have faced this situation before, so I 
> thought I'd ask the group for advice.
>
> By the way, there is a 20-page booklet about our cabin and the process 
> of building it that people might find useful as an introduction to cob 
> self-build. It's available on our website at
>
> http://www.lesspress.com/twiki/bin/view/English/SnailCabin
>
> Thanks,
>
> Robert
>
>
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