[Cob] Framing doors and windows

[Shody Ryon]

Hi Janet,
If you wish to have good insulation another option might be to wood frame a house with a one foot think wall thickness and fill that with cellulose insulation. I am speaking from a framer's perspective. I know very little about cob building so I am just putting this out there. I assume that if you need a lot of insulation and that cob was not traditionally used in that area, so you might be advised to look at energy efficiency issues, insulate well and use cob, if your heart is set on cob, to add character. Interior to the insulation, cob could compliment the insulation value with thermal storage properties.
Really good insulation working in tandem with thermal storage is said to work really well to lower heating and cooling requirements if designed and built well. If you lower that need enough, you can use a smallish sun space as your primary heating system.
Water is a better thermal storage media than earth and I like Laren's idea of using 2L soda (PET) bottles with appropriate surface area to storage ratio. His system does not circulate water, it circulates air to heat or cool the the water bottle thermal storage. It might work to use cob instead of water bottles. 
Hugs,
Shody

--- On Thu, 12/18/08, Janet Standeford <j.standeford at hughes.net> wrote:

> From: Janet Standeford <j.standeford at hughes.net>
> Subject: Re: [Cob] Framing doors and windows
> To: "'yew'" <yewberry at wavecable.com>, coblist at deatech.com
> Date: Thursday, December 18, 2008, 3:58 PM
> Please help me find a site that describes the proper way to
> frame doors and
> windows and also has specs and pictures.