Floors Made Out of Mud Are Hot
To crudely paraphrase the former U.S. Ambassador of Jazz, Louis Armstrong, Hot can be Cool, and Cool can be Hot, and Each can be Both, but Hot or Cool man, Mud is Mud.
“Early one Saturday morning in January, Kevin Rowell dumped a bucket of dark mud on the floor of his big south-facing bedroom. It landed with a plop, spreading out and merging with a blanket of wet earth that already extended across much of the room. On his knees, Mr. Rowell took a trowel to the pile, nudging it this way and that until the mud was roughly level and about an inch and a half deep.
As Mr. Rowell finished smoothing that section, his wife, Marisha Farnsworth, appeared at the door and handed him another bucket of mud. A moment later, another plop, and the process continued. The mud was expanding, and would soon cover the entire floor .
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Mr. Rowell, 28, as he stood back to take in the whole room. ‘It’s just what we wanted.’”
These innovative so-called natural builders are using mud mixed with lime and sand as a floor covering that is not only energy efficient, but is ecologically sound as well. The earthen floors are excellent at retaining passive solar energy and provide a very unique look to any room. The obvious question is, “but doesn’t that make your feet dirty?” By sealing the floors after drying (the curing takes a few weeks) with linseed oil and beeswax, the flooring is resilient and easy to clean. The biggest obstacles to overcome with this ground-breaking (sorry) material is cracking and damage from high impact distress caused by table legs and high heels. But then something about a dirt floor doesn’t exactly scream high heels.
Link to Article (via treehugger and digg)
8 February 2007 | Construction, Green Building, Technology | Comments
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