Santiago - 5-18-2012 at 06:38 PM
http://cobinbaja.blogspot.com/
During our Valle de Guadalupe tour last week, we were told by other vintners to visit the Sol y Barro winery and we are glad we did. I found the cob
wall construction very interesting; the above link takes you to the swiss owner who built the winery. His wine, by the way, is a blend of greneche
and cabernet and is quite good.
durrelllrobert - 5-19-2012 at 11:52 AM
Wow! COB = raw earth and "recycled material". Any idea what that was? Elswhere I think it say that clay, sand and straw were used.
In Portugal they actually use corn cobs:
Tabique construction is one of the main Portuguese traditional building techniques that use earth based building materials. It is peculiar building
technique which uses corn's cob as a filling material for the external tabique walls. The existing tabique construction in Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro
region of northeast Portugal was studied to learn from it for modern day construction. The research showed that corn's cob, an agricultural waste, has
the potential to be used as a sustainable building material for thermal insulation. An experimental work concluded that there are significant
similarities between the corn's cob and the extruded polystyrene (XPS) material in terms of microstructure and chemical composition. Furthermore, the
results obtained from an expeditious experimental thermal procedure indicate that the corn's cob may have adequate thermal properties for building
purpose.
Santiago - 5-19-2012 at 01:39 PM
He says the earth he uses comes from the farm behind him that has a lot of clay in it. He was born and educated as an engineer in Switzerland, coming
to Mexico in his 20s to work in his uncles resturaunt. I thought he used straw and not find, but he claims the rains do not wash any of it away, even
on the day they mix it.