Rethink Your Life! Finance, health, lifestyle, environment, philosophy |
The Work of Art and The Art of Work Kiko Denzer on Art |
|
|
[Cob] floors- cob-limeCharmaine Taylor dirtcheapbuilderbooks at gmail.comFri Feb 18 16:37:12 CST 2011
Has anyone done a cob floor with lime plaster as a finish? Seems to me it would be better than beeswax and linseed oil +++++++++++++ Damon- one of the most amazing floors ever is 2,000 years old in the Middle East.. a 1/2" thick polished lime floor. But under it is prolly stone or marble, not just dirt. Your lime floor would need many MONTHS or a year+ to cure before putting weight on it, esp. feet of chairs, etc. this is because the lime KEEPS curing over decades getting harder all the time til it is stone again. the PSI is very low for years. SO you can't look at thick lime - just 1/2" or less because you can't cure lime several inches or even 1.5 inches thick in short time.. it needs air to harden back to limestone. So it would not be practical. But begin NOW and you could pre-cast floor squares, and CURE them all before laying down, with wet cob/lime as mortar' if you live in your house for years, why not plan a floor that can be put in later as part of design/maintenance? I made several test floor squares pouring a 2" thick clay-lime- sawdust mix using a cardboard lid as a form then laid in a thick slate, let cure 2 months. and set out in the yard as a step stone as a test. It lasted 4 years before the slate only lifted off of the base, it needed a lime mortar to grip it again. it had lain on a thin layer of gravel over dirt in our rainy PNW, and it lasted! if you use the pre-cast squares you could lay the floor whenever you want, a room or space at a time and just pour the wall edges where it curves, you might even design the floor with areas that can have 'lift out' squares as they wear from use or 'easiest'-- why not get dark or colorful ceramic tiles (scrap/free?) and let the cob or lime be the grout between them. -- Charmaine Taylor Publishing www.papercrete.com www.dirtcheapbuilder.com
|