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<body>On Fri, 03 Jul 2015 15:46:14 -0400, Reuben Deumling <9watts@gmail.com> wrote:<br><br><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0.80ex; border-left: #0000FF 2px solid; padding-left: 1ex"><div dir="ltr">What is 'clay slip'?<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 12:42 PM, Koehn Chris <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:chris@koehn.com" target="_blank">chris@koehn.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br> We’ve recently completed a home using “chip and slip” walls: 12” deep Larsen trusses filled with wood chips coated in clay slip and manually compacted. The clay-straw / clay slip folk seem to be experimenting with variable ratios of clay vs. chips: I would quantify ours as “middling” - enough to bond the chips and a bit more. Not very scientific, sorry. </blockquote></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>For those who are unfamiliar with earth as a building material, Dr. Gernot Minke's 1994 classic "Das neue Lehmbau-Handbuch" (which guys like WatJohn (aka Dr. John Straube) had to read in the original German when it first appeared) has been available in English (and Spanish and Russian) for awhile and is even available as a free download in PDF version now.</div><div><br></div><div>Just Google " Building with Earth" and/or " Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture Gernot Minke" and you should find a PDF document that is about 22 MB in size.</div><div><br></div><div>In the aforementioned, you will find useful data and tables ( ie thermal conductivity values for a earth/cellulosic fibre mixes for densities ranging from lightly-coated with clay slip mixes to heavily compacted rammed-earth type mixes ... and perhaps of interest to Eli, "Absorption Curves for Solid and Lightweight Earthen Mixes" where relative humidity is plotted against moisture content to yield curves for 16 different mixes so that Eli could simply go to the appropriate curve and read off the answer to his query.<br></div><div><br></div><div>For the non-numerically-inclined, the text provides an excellent introduction to earth as a building material for First Worlders in the 21st century.</div><div><br></div><div>To utilise the hygroscopic properties of earthen mixes as a humidity buffer for living spaces, it would be more a matter of incorporating it into the walls and floors in place of the more common North American materials like painted gypsum board or plywood rather than trying to use fans to move air through /around a small quantity of loose material. For some examples of what the finished material can look like, the work of Syuhei Hasado (via Satomi Lander's site http://www.landerland.com ) may provide some inspiration. </div><div><br></div><div>http://www.syuhei.jp/english/img/portfolio.pdf</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div id="M2Signature"><div>-- </div><div>=== * ===<br>Rob Tom DT7-64 <br>Kanata, Ontario, Canada</div></div></body></html>