[Cob] cob walls for stables

[Andy Dunn - Luibh]

Thats great, the consensus seems to be that it should be fine then. We  
plan on building the walls about 2' thick, and including a layer of  
rubber in the stable area up to kicking height which I think should be  
enough to protect them from the worst kind of damage and rubbing.

I'd be quite curious what those feed cribs looked like you mentioned  
as we're hoping to embed half a steel beer barrel in the wall with cob  
(for grain) aswell as some kind of corner ground feeder for the hay.

And yes, I agree that cob is far too ignored these days when  
historically we have a long tradition of building with earth material  
that is perfectly suited to the local environment. Im equally as keen  
to use it for traditional reasons as I am for environmental ones.

Will drop you an email Kathryn about the site.

Thanks,

Andy

On 4 Iúil 2009, at 18:58, Kathryn Marsh wrote:

> Hi Andy
>
> When I first moved to Rush in the 70s there were still quite a few  
> houses around the town that had cob stabling and the soil there  
> would have quite a bit more sand than you have have in Leitrim. Here  
> in Gormanston the last cob stabling succumbed to "accidentally"  
> having its roofing left off during rains a few weeks ago - that  
> certainly dated back a couple of hundred years and the ones in Rush  
> would have been older. I haven't seen any of these buildings still  
> in use for horses because the horses had gone by the time I knew  
> them but the one in Gormanston was exactly like the later poured  
> concrete I have, which was built by a man who grew up in the farm  
> that had the cob. It had a moulded cob feed crib in each of three  
> loose boxes.
>
> There were quite a few cob cattle sheds around here within the last  
> 20 years - I think they all succumbed to the tiger years though. Cob  
> is ridiculously neglected here in the rush to straw bale etc. Cob,  
> or wattle and daub, make far more sense here
>
> kathryn
>
> ps I'm getting prices for a new website for Sonairte at the moment -  
> care to give me examples of your work and a tender? www,sonairte.org
>
>
> On 4 Jul 2009, at 16:29, Andy Dunn - Luibh wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> We're planning on building a few stables hopefully over the next few
>> months, and are going to use cob in some form. One of the questions  
>> we
>> have is whether cob on its own (with lime plaster), would be strong
>> enough to withstand horses kicks, or if we should include some
>> powdered lime to the mix to make it even stronger.
>>
>> There is a great tradition of building with cob in this local area,  
>> as
>> many of the old cottages are built from the grey/yellow 'daub' in the
>> ground, which unfortunately makes bad quality land for farming but
>> great for building.
>>
>> Im quite a purist and would ideally just use clay/sand/straw but my
>> wife is concerned that wouldn't be enough to withstand a full kick
>> from a large horse.
>>
>> Any advice much appreciated.
>>
>> --
>> Andy Dunn
>>
>> www.luibh.ie
>> andy at luibh.ie
>> 00 353 86 0230879
>>
>>
>>
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>

--
Andy Dunn

www.luibh.ie
andy at luibh.ie
00 353 86 0230879



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