The Base Revisited Day 1

So I know that I had shared with you all before the damage that had been done to the base from the weather. Well my fix was to surround the base with adobe bricks and fill any gaps with cob. you can see in the pictures below the progress that we made.

This is the first course of the base that we laid. You can see how we wrapped it around the base and then filled in any gaps. You can see above as our son Charles is working on filling any gaps left after laying the first course. This first coarse you might notice is much whiter than the subsequent courses. I was experimenting with adding hydrated lime to the adobe to help make it more water proof. I was working on a way to use the adobe bricks for a raised garden bed. When I get that project going I will begin a new blog to include that rather than add it to this one. I laid the lime bricks as the ground coarse to help stop any water from wicking up the wall.

So this is where we got to on the first day of building the base. Also each coarse consisted of 28 1/2 bricks. I'm figuring on 7 courses to reach the height I need to fill and cover the weather damage as well as to allow me to level out the side counter.

One quick note I'd like to mention, remember to wet the dry surfaces before adding the cob. By wetting the dry surfaces first this allows the new cob to bind with the already cured surfaces. Water works if there is enough clay in your mix but, if your mix is lean on clay then you'll need to use a thin clay slip.