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

[Henry Raduazo]

David: There is also cob over straw bale. I have some pictures if you  
are interested. This gives you the advantage of combining the heat  
storage of cob with the insulation of bale. Ianto is now re-tying  
bales and using a chain saw to cut them in half thus making the wall  
thinner and still getting the insulation of bale.
eD


On Nov 14, 2007, at 11:34 PM, drub wrote:

>
> 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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>
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