Friday, April 17, 2009

More Mud Work - who wouldn't want to do this?

So we're still working on the subfloor, and I thought I'd show a few pictures of the process.

The mix, once all together, looks pretty mucky and loose. This isn't how cob looks, as that can be almost made into a loaf or meatball and tossed around. This is more like gravely muck.

After we get the 3 inches of it packed down tight, we use level boards to 'screed' (I didn't know the word had a D on the end of it, so we just say 'scree') the floor flat and level, and then we have to pull out the level board:


You can see how stiff the mix is, and how hard we pack it in where the sides don't collapse when we pull that board out. We then go back and stuff that channel with the stuff.


Yesterday we finished the first room. This is actually what we refer to as 'the second bedroom'. There's about a yard of road base gravel in that mix, and about 5 half days of work over 2 weeks or so.

That rock in the foreground is a foundation bit for a future wall that will turn in there, sort of like a butress.

No comments:

Design Mistakes in my cob house

So, I have long meant to create a list of mistakes I made when designing the finishings on our house.  Now that we've lived in it for a ...