Cordwood and stone Hobbit Houses

[desdawg]

Well, back to the topic or maybe the first off-topic ramble. My first book arrived today, Building With Stone by Charles McRaven. I started reading and the man seems very knowledgeable, experienced and writes well. You can tell he is one of us. I think I am going to learn something. I sure do have a lot of stone so I may as well make use of it.  Last weekend I started laying a stone floor in a small outbuilding. I have red volcanic stone with fairly flat faces on the exposed side. The rest of the stone is irregularly shaped and some took quite a bit of digging to get in the ground with the flat side up. Talk about time consuming. But the part I got finished looks good. I didn't break out the mortar, just threw dirt on top and swept it into the joints with a broom. When it is all in place I will re-level where needed, clean out the joints and apply some mortar with a pastry bag. Anyway it is my first stone project so its kind of fun to see what I can do. You sure can sort through a lot of rocks to get some that fit well together.

[glenn kangiser]

Even I can find my way back to the topic with a little shove, desdawg.  Here is a neat online book Bart posted a link to a long time ago.  It is on dry stone walling, but the principles could be applied to any wall.  Be sure to click on the page indexes on this one as it opens lots more info but isn't real apparent at first.

http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/index/book/61
BTCV Handbooks Online  

Here is Becky Bee's cob handbook on line - most of it -- It goes well with a cordwood and stone hobbit house.  

http://www.weblife.org/cob/index.html
Cob Builders Handbook

[desdawg]

Thanks Glenn, I have been meaning to get more into the cob techniques. I started once and kind of got busy with other things and never got back to it. Now that winter has set in I will have more time. It was 3 degrees at my mountain property yesterday morning so I won't be going for a while. I will be staying here in the balmy desert, assembling my sawmill which is due to arrive next week and get it ready to transport fully assembled when the weather turns around.   Wow, it is almost Christmas already. My best presents are the one's that I give to me.  8-)

[glenn kangiser]

That's cause you know what you want and you have good tastes, desdawg.

3 degrees - where did you say that was - that's uninhabitable. :-/

[Amanda_931]

And I kind of doubt that you want to try to have wet cob around at that temperature either.

As in the kind of ice extrusion out of clay soil when it is saturated and then frozen--I've seen it up at least an inch.

[desdawg]

3 degrees, Seligman, AZ home of the Kangiser Building. You know, that famous round building with the crapper removed and the stacked washer and dryer that barely squeaked through the door. That would be the place.

[glenn kangiser]

Ah yes, desdawg.  I know that building -- if I was there that door would have been squeaked through many times before it was converted to something else.  ---but I would definitely leave my brass monkey in California. :-/

[desdawg]

I am about 30 years behind but I just received the first three Foxfire books that I purchased on e-bay. I was reading about how the old Andirondack's people made lumber and shingles and many other things from trees with nothing but hand tools. Now we are really talking about labor intensive work. I am pretty amazed. On top of that before they could use the hand tools they had to make them. Pretty resourceful people. Oh well, just another reading project that finally hit the front burner. I didn't want to stay too close to the topic. Everyone would think something was wrong.

[glenn kangiser]

I still occasionally make my own tools but did quite often in the distant  past.  I worked in a blacksmith shop for a while and learned to run a forge and a drop hammer.  Making things from wrought iron (now Steel) makes sense to fit in with the decor of your cordwood and stone hobbit house, desdawg.  Make your own wrought hinges, latches etc.

[Deana]

Not a hobbit house per se but a really nice example of  stone slipform


http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?T=445410

and a link to one couple's self- published book on how they slipformed their house.  I'm ordering this book, of all the slipform books I've looked at this one seems to have the best procedure for a clean face to the walls. They fill  the front of the forms with sand and it seems to be the key to avoiding hours of chiseling cement drips.  

http://www.kohlerandlewis.com/joe/SH.htm

The book is only sporadically listed on ebay, I emailed them personally and they gave me an alternate address to order from directly.

[Sassy]

Beautiful!  We've done some "rubble wall" pretty much the same technique except we didn't put the sand between the boards & face of the rocks - sounds like it might work - will have to try it!

[Amanda_931]

And the insulation was part of building the wall.  Although then you're faced with what to do with the inside.  And you lose the thermal mass effect.

Not true of the two people I know who built a (partly in one case, all in the other) slipformed stone house.  But one of those houses is at least 25 years old now.  and I believe they had damp problems at least initially in the second--new in the last three years.

They may both have been insulated where they were built into a hill--on the outside.

Slow going, probably not for one person to build.  I certainly know (on- and off-line) people who took a summer to build a dry stone wall by themselves.

The Schwenke's book was the first I saw on the subject.  Out of print, available on the used market for not too much--check alibris, maybe Powell's and dirtcheapbuilder if you want to avoid the 500 pound gorilla--I don't all the time.

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Own-Stone-House/dp/0882666398

[GunPilot]

That is one of those little confusing things the gegraphers amongst us do to baffle people. Joe Arpaio is the Maricopa County Sheriff. The City of Maricopa is in Pinal County.
Kind of like being in Wyoming. Cheyenne is the County seat of Laramie County. Laramie Wyoming is not in Laramie County.   :-/>

Howdy, neighbor. I live over here in Casa Grande.  Funny to meet here.  Anyway, folks come to Casa Grande to see the Casa Grande Ruins, which are unfortunately over in the town of Coolidge.

How about a review on that sawmill once you get it together?

(back on topic alert) Just bought the Cordwood and Timber Framing books by Rob Roy. Pretty cool - those techniques will likely find their way into Rancho Perdido.

[glenn kangiser]

Wow- starting off on the right foot - heading right back for the topic.  No wonder I can never find what I'm looking for.  
Welcome to the forum, GunPilot

I got the Rob Roy Cordwood book when I started the underground complex.  Nice book with lots of interesting information.  I need to add a bit around here just to say I have it.  I have a few nice dry Cedar logs that would work pretty good for a cordwood wall.

[desdawg]

Gunpilot, we will have to hook up one of these days. I am in Hidden Valley south of Maricopa. I am usually in Casa Grande a couple of times a week minimum.
I  finished reading "Building With Stone" by Charles McRaven, am in the middle of reading Rob Roys "Cordwood Building, State of the Art" and have "The Natural Plaster Book" by Cedar Rose Guelberth and Dan Chiras waiting for me when I finish with that. Natural Plaster covers "earth, lime and gypsum plasters for natural homes" according to the cover. Amazon.com likes me now.
I have been to the Casa Grande Ruins and seen the "recycled caliche" from some 900 years ago. A roof had to be built over it as it was starting to achieve melt down after all of those years in the elements. The HoHoKam were an amazing people for their time.

[GunPilot]

Yes, I guess that fits the topic.  The Ruins are a form of Hobbit house, aren't they?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Grande_Ruins_National_Monument