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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Yeah, I remember that old correspondence. You had me going for a dirt 
floor. Then I found that it scratches pretty easy. Dax and Benny's nails 
would give it a design that Chris would not accept.


At 09:19 PM 11/13/2004 -0800, you wrote:
> Old correspondence with Anita Sands, our resident signs of the Zodiac 
> forecast---but mostly on dirt floors and their (great) advantages.
> *THE JOY OF A MUD FLOOR*
>
> Throw your mops away. This floor is MADE of DIRT so dirt doesn't HURT! 
> This I learned from the Homesteaders list when a lister asked The resident 
> Yoda, Master of the Universe, Tiv, a question.
> Q: you obviously like earthen floors. Could you elaborate a little? Why do 
> you like them better than other types of flooring?
>
> Tvoivozhd: The only cheaper floor is wall-to-wall carpet over polyethylene 
> sheet over sand over polyethylene sheet vapor barrier. I hate unsanitary, 
> uncleanable offgassing carpeting.
>
> My introduction to earth floors was in a friend's house in Jamshedpur, 
> India. His brother built and ran the biggest steelmill in the British 
> Empire---he could afford anything he wanted. What he wanted and what he 
> got was a gorgeous, wide-walled adobe house with beautiful dirt floors, 
> and filled with a couple hundred thousand dollars of furniture.
>
> I was fascinated by the appearance of the floor---the look and feel of 
> Cordovan leather. Asked him what it was. He said dirt mixed with goat 
> urine and several coats of linseed oil.applied as finish coat. It probably 
> had some lime in it---he didn't know.
>
> Earth floors are the next cheapest to the carpeting which I despise. They 
> are good at transmitting heat (or coolth) wear well and are easily 
> repaired or replaced. One exception would probably be high heels---too 
> small an area for a person's weight to produce a reasonable loading.
>
> Earth floors do not crack or powder. John Swearingen, "Skilful Means 
> Builders", is one of the best
> contractors in the U.S. Here's his account of one version of earth floors. 
> http://www.snowcrest.net/smb/mudfloors.htm
>
> Athena and Bill Steen are the foremost U.S. experts on earth floors. Buy 
> their booklet "Earthen Floors" for $10 (including shipping) E-mail for 
> purchase details at <absteen AT dakotacom.net> or their Canelo website has 
> order forms (and a lot of stuff on strawbale)
> http://www.deatech.com/canelo/order.html
>
> I vaguely remember an article on earth floors in Fine Homebuilding in the 
> last year or two, but the issue I was looking for is hiding in one of the 
> many piles that resist close inspection..
>
> An article on earth floors in Designer/Builder, a Journal of Human 
> Environment (August 1997) Article, "How to make a mud floor"---shows one 
> of Steen jobs.
>
> Read about the Monk floor here
> http://www.crest.org/efficiency/strawbale-list-archive/9606/msg00402.html
>
> http://www.crest.org/efficiency/strawbale-list-archive/9606/msg00407.html
> (opinion of Monk floor)
>
> Another Swearingen comment
> http://www.crest.org/efficiency/strawbale-list-archive/9606/msg00392.html
>
> http://www.crest.org/efficiency/strawbale-list-archive/9606/msg00389.html
> (Shelter, 1973, page 46)
>
> Not germane to dirt floors, but here's a URL on stamped concrete
> floors---mostly for information, it's UK.
> http://www.kerrial.com/rplpave./stamp.html
> ^*^*^*^*^*
> Mud Floors
> A Warm and Elegant Solution
>
> Adobe floors, made from poured and trowelled mud, are softer and warmer to 
> the touch than
> tile or cement, and carry the rich colors of natural earth. Skillful Means 
> has been
> experimenting with various additives to make adobe floors easy create and 
> maintain. One
> additive is made from phsyllium hulls, a common ingredient in natural 
> laxatives and
> erosion control formulas. This additive makes the mud easy to work and 
> acts as a binder
> when the floor dries, reducing cracking and increasing strength. Following 
> is a
> description of a recent installation.
>
> U.C. Berkeley Architecture Students Mix Mud in Mendocino
>
> *Procedure for Stabilized Adobe Floor*
>
> Subslab Preparation:
>
> Original plans did not call for an adobe floor. A 4" rough slab
> had been poured. We laid 3/4" o.d. radiant heating tubes over
> 2" insulation on top of the slab, and poured a very rough pea
> gravel mix over the tops of the tubs. Our first layer of adobe
> with phylum was placed on top of this.
>
> The soil was taken from nearby and contained approximately 30%
> clay, silt and fine sand. Preliminary tests with Portland
> cement mixtures showed that this soil was moderately expansive,
> but mixed with sand could be prevented from cracking.
>
> Base coat of stabilized adobe:
>
> We mixed adobe with 50% sand and approx. 6oz/cf of psyllium in
> a stucco mixer. The ingredients were mixed dry to incorporate
> the Psyllium uniformly, then water was added. We experimented
> with the amount of water in the mix and finally settled on a
> relatively wet mix, about the consistency of pancake batter. We
> were laying down a thickness of about one-inch. Thicker mixes,
> although they would shrink less, could not in practice be
> consolidated sufficiently for folds, joints and slip layers in
> the mix to melt together--the thick mix resulted in "stretch
> mark" cracks resulting from the unconsolidated material which
> had been troweled together but which ruptured because of
> internal layering. If the mix was too thin, it could not be
> trowelled without leaving gross trowel marks--and the wait for
> it to dry out was too great. Just the right mix could be
> jiggled and pressed into a monolithic whole and still could be
> trowelled relatively smooth before moving to the next section.
>
> All of these mixes resulted in shrinkage cracks, which we now
> know could have been avoided by increasing the proportion of
> sand in the mix.
>
> Topping Coat:
>
> For a topping coat we used the same soil, sifted through window
> screen and mixed with very fine sand (120 grit). Before putting
> down the topping coat, we filled the cracks in the base coat
> with the same ingredients in a stiff mix worked into the cracks
> with a grout float. The surface of the adobe base was scrubbed
> with water and an abrasive "scrubby" to clean and soften the
> adobe. This process resulted in the cracks filling at least
> part way with water, and the cracks drying with dips about 1/8"
> to 3/16" below the base surface. This dipping contributed to
> the cracks telegraphing through to the topping coat.
>
> The filling was thoroughly dried before the topping coat was
> applied. Because the mud had gotten wet during storms, we could
> not mix it with psyllium without globs being created. We took
> 1/3 bucket of dry psyllium and mixed it with about 1-1/3
> buckets of water to make a Jell-O-like slime. The very
> thoroughly mixed the water into the psyllium, and then allowed
> the gook to sit for at least 24 hours. This waiting period
> allows water to soak into all the dry psyllium.
>
> Our topping mixture was made by scooping 2 parts mud to 4 parts
> sand to 1 part slime, put into the bucket to mix in that order.
> Water was added, and we first mixed the sand and the slime
> together on the top before plunging the paddle (we used an "x"
> shaped paddle on a right-angle drill) deeper to bring up the
> mud. The gritty quality of the sand seems to break up the slime
> better---mixing immediately with the soil resulted in small
> globs of unmixed slime remaining in the mix. The bucket was
> very thoroughly mixed to destroy these globs, which show in the
> finished floor.
>
> Our procedure in applying the topping coat was to first scrub
> and wet the base coat, then trowel the adobe in place about
> 1/4" thick on average and flatten it with an 18" pool trowel.
> We applied in sections no more than an arm's reach wide. The
> stabilized soil has a certain "set" as the water was pulled out
> of it from the dry adobe below. This "set" affects the
> workability of the mix. When first applied, it was fairly runny
> and could be easily "floated" and shaped into a level surface,
> but couldn't be smoothed. As it set we did two further
> trowellings, first with a 10", then a very 'soft' 8" pool
> trowel. The second pass (10") left the surface a little grainy,
> but with a tight, uniform surface. The final pass, when the
> mixture was harder, made the high points slick, but left the
> valleys untouched. The owner preferred this, but the slab could
> have been left with the second pass.
>
> The finely sifted soil and fine sand made it easy to work and
> consolidate seams. We worked in semi-circular sections with
> uneven seam lines so that the joints were irregular and random,
> blending in with the floor.
>
> Finishes:
>
> The floor has been finished with three coats of Okan sealer,
> which has given it a slight gloss, particularly in high spots,
> which took the steel trowel in the final finish. It is too
> early to tell how well this will wear. The owner sealed the
> living room with linseed oil and prefers this finish. We
> attempted to give a seal of Okan, then a surface of linseed
> oil, but after a single sealer coat of Okan, the floor would
> not absorb linseed oil without becoming splotchy.
>
> Conclusions:
>
> This procedure could be replicated to produce a floor of
> excellent quality and consistency. It took a single person
> about twenty hours to do three passes on 7-800 SF of floor. It
> took three and a half people, plus a mixer, to pour the
> original 1" stabilized base. There was also several hours spent
> sifting the soil for the final coat.
>
> The topping coat was very thin but adhered well to the
> stabilized base, which was wetted and softened before
> application of the topping coat. Our base coat did not adhere
> to concrete at all well, but since it was 1" thick, it sat on
> top without problems.
>
> Skillful Means is available to install adobe and stabilized earth flooring.
> Give us a call. SKILLFUL MEANS John Swearingen PO Box 207
> Junction City, California balehead AT delphi.com
>
>
>
>
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