In a catch-up post from 2016, I promised you’d get to see Mia laying the base layer for our upstairs earthen floor. Well here it is:
If you’re wondering what these nut bars are up to laying a mud floor in their new house [the building inspector certainly was], rest assured that we are only at the rough base layer stage right now but here’s what we are hoping for when we get to the final, tinted earthen floor layers later this summer:
http://www.claylin.com/photos/photo-gallery.php
These fine floors are the work of Sukita Reay Crimmel, author of New Society’s Earthen Floors. I had the pleasure of giving her a lift through the mountains and desert of New Mexico in 2015 and bending her ear about earthen floors. She tried to get out of the car but we were driving at 70 miles per hour.
However, I wish I’d have listen more closely to her words about testing as we had a few problems with our initial ground floor sub-floor mix that we later sorted out once I revisited her book. But rather than me blathering on about it in words, you can watch me blather on about it here and how it went oh so wrong and then oh so right.
When we get to the final floors this coming summer, I’ll give you much more detail about how they are laid, the huge benefits, the challenges and how they are finished.
Until then, here are some fun photos of playing in the mud [and really sore knees].
Karen whacking straw for the cob
Karen, Grandma and Mia mixing cob
The mix that later cracked. Too thick, too much clay and not enough sand and fibre
Concrete pad and make-up air intake for the wood stove
Barley sprouting as the cob dries
Prepping height sticks for the main room base layer
Living room floor prepped and ready for the cob base layer
Bubble material to reduce the probability of cracking around the posts
Wood stove air in-take pipe goes under the floor and out through the wall.
Mia being swallowed by a massive pile of cob
Laying the base layer in the living room
You can’t keep John away from this stuff
Mia checking the elevation of her section of floor
John and Mia in the kitchen
The last bits of a seven hour continuous pour of the living room and kitchen cob sub-floor
Karen mixing a 20 bucket load of cob with the rototiller
Oh my
Moving material with the venerable Ford
Mia’s addition to her bedroom sub-floor
Karen and John laying the sub-floor in our upstairs project room
Oh yeah
Floor eye’s view
the handcrafted life 