Cob: Firing a cob house.

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000 Laythsul at aol.com wrote:

>   Does anyone have any idea of how to fire a cob house. I heared unlike adobe 
> blocks buildings, cob needs to be fired from both the inside and out. and 
> would the firing of a cob house make it structuraly stronger or weaker with 
> respect to Earthquaces. I would apriciate anyones reply.
> 
> Layth.

No, you do not fire cob houses - mix earth (sand and clay), straw, and
water, build walls, let dry - that in a nutshell is all there is to cob
construction.  There are houses that are fired, and some of these
techniques may have similarities to cob (I don't know), Nader
Khalili is one well known proponent of this technique, and more 
information can be found about him and his work at: www.calearth.org

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
                      |    Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
   or: (541) 451-5177 |                  www.deatech.com