Posts Tagged ‘wattle and daub’
Wood and Clay; 2 great materials that go together.
Posted by Joshua | Filed under Breathable wall systems, Germany
Ahh, beautiful German architecture. The exposed timber frame, the lime plastered exterior, the clay tile roofs. Most of these homes were built between 200 -350 yrs ago. Some have been maintained well, others are falling apart and others have been maintained using more modern methods.
What is regular maintenance on the homes? New earthen plaster every 20 yrs or so, where necessary, a new coat of lime plaster every 100 yrs, a coat of lime wash on the exterior every 5 yrs. Straw replacement under the tiles every 100 yrs (more about this later in a post on roofs).
Not very much.
So, this is a great picture I pulled from Wikipedia that shows typical wall construction. Exposed timber frame. Oak splits, inserted into the frame and willow wound through the oak staves creating what is called the wattle of wattle and daub. The daub is what is called cob in the U.S.; a mix of clay, sand and straw. Pushed into the wattle. And then earthen plaster on the interior, lime plaster on the exterior.
The other method of infill can be seen at the top of the picture. Take clay bricks, otherwise known as adobe, and use an earthen mortar and in throw it all in. And if you have access to stone, use that instead.
All of this results in a breathable wall system. One that allows moisture to get out of the wall. This is incredibly important for the health of our homes and ourselves.
Hopefully, we will start to see more of this style of construction in the U.S.