[Cob] corn storage bins

[Shannon Dealy]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, charles medic wrote:

>
>   does anyone one this list have any knowledge of building inside of
>   corrugated corn/grain storage bins?
>   i would like to straw bale the inside and i'm concerned about
>   condensation between the metal and the straw

You pretty much garantee rot in an bale structure which does not have a 
highly breathable outer skin, and mold on the interior or inside the 
walls of any structure (regardless of building material) which does not 
have both a breathable inner and outer skin.  Many approaches have been 
used (with varying success) to prevent these problems when using 
impermeable skins, but they usually come down to alot of air exchange 
with the outside which is good from a health perspective but bad from a 
heating/cooling perspective, and while they may prevent significant mold 
inside the house are still are unlikely to prevent bale rot.  If I were 
going to build with bales using a metal shell, I would either build the 
bale structure inside and small enough to avoid physical contact with the 
metal shell (allowing airflow between them), or wrap the outside of the 
shell in bales.  The second case can still have problems with moisture 
build up in the bales, particularly in humid climates, but the problem 
should be slower than the interior case, and there is at least an 
impermeable barrier between your living space and the moldy/rotting bales 
should problems occur.

Cob and other building materials can have some of these same issues, it's 
just that they have a much higher tolerance for moisture than straw bales 
do.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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