[Cob] foundation

[Lisa Winter]

thanks charmaine and amanda for the input.  i have a
question.  if you pour a stemwall.  do you have any
suggestions on what you can do with the wood that you
used for the form afterwards?  also, is there a way to
pour it in sections, so as to use less wood at once or
must you pour it all together to increase the
structural integrety of the wall.  we live in missouri
and it is fairly rainy here, not like the pacific
northwest but in the spring it rains frequently and
hard.  
thanks for the suggestion of slipform stone walls, i
hadn't thought of that.  i'll show that suggestion to
my husband.  it looks like it can be done in sections
and with less wood used.
thanks so much,
lisa


--- Amanda Peck <ap615 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Charmaine's right, it might make sense if you did
> pour your stemwall.  
> Depending on how much rain you get, it might need to
> be a bit taller, inside 
> and out, than Owens' (the one in the DVD).
> 
> Yep, building stone walls is an art.  You either
> love it or hate it, and 
> people who love it can't be hurried.  As long as the
> urbanite doesn't have 
> rebar in it (much preferred!) you may be able to
> score and break it.  Some 
> kinds of stone can be shaped more easily than
> others.  Roughly is fine, as 
> long as you don't make little columns of stones, and
> you DO have big jobs 
> spanning the width of the wall fairly frequently.
> 
> Or use SLIPFORM STONE WALLS the way the Nearings
> did.
> 
> You might look at a book on stone walls.  There are
> lots of them.
> 
> Or, what the heck, concrete block uses less concrete
> than slabs, so you 
> could put in a double wall, ties between the
> sections, and get some 
> insulation in there, between the two rows of block
> and in the block 
> cavities.
> 
> The DVD mentioned, "Building with Awareness" is
> good.  Production values are 
> excellent, no small matter.  All the Amazon reviews
> are 5-star, including 
> mine, which a) has a typo in it and b) is by far the
> most curmudgeonly of 
> the lot.  The plastering sections alone are worth
> it.  The woman's voice, 
> the specially composed music, and the incessant
> repetition of the word 
> "aesthetic" did get to me.  And after that long song
> and dance about less 
> concrete, he has a slab floor.  This is a codes
> approved house, so he may 
> have had to, but couldn't he have agonized a bit
> over it?
> 
> ..........................
> Lisa wondered how to do a foundation/stemwall,
> Charmaine answered her:
> 
> Ted Owens in his new DVD about his tiny SB-adobe 
> house showed how he did a 
> trench with rubble and Urbanite ( the word you
> wanted) in it, the a small 
> pour of cement at the top  of X inches... so it
> saved on consumption of 
> portland cement for  a big perimeter pour.
> 
> 
> On Apr 24, 2005, at 8:58 PM, Lisa Winter wrote:
> 
> 
> >   But we are having a hard time deciding what
> >to use for foundation.  we are going to dig a
> trench
> >and then fill it with a drainage pipe and then
> gravel.
> >   how to build up
> >the foundation tall enough to do our cob building.
> 
> 
> >and if we would need to cement them together. 
> we've
> >also discussed using old concrete from like
> sidewalks
> >(it has a name- which of course escapes me at the
> >moment).
> >  we've also discussed
> >using poured concrete,  i'm just asking for some
> suggestions
> >
> 
> >lisa and john
> >
> 
> 
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