Re: SB: floor stuff

[Speireag Alden <Joshua.M.Alden.91@alum.dartmouth.org>]

Sgrìobh Athena and Bill Steen:

>Did someone say that the clay won't work?  I missed where you are 
>located and need to know that because if you are in the far north, 
>your floor may not dry til next year.

     One good way to deal with this, if you're planning a radiant 
floor, is to speed drying by heating the floor.  You should be able 
to dry things out in a week or less, I would think, if you keep hot 
water running through the pipes.  In fact, as I've often said, the 
piping is so inexpensive that it's worth putting in the floor even if 
you aren't planning for radiant heat in the near future.  In the case 
of an earthen floor, the saved drying time in the wet north is 
probably worth the cost of the pipe.

>   But anyway, back to the clay.  We encountered the
>same thing upon working in Nova Scotia a few years back.  We had never seen
>clay so densely packed and in a wet state.  What we did was shave pieces of
>the bigger chunks we had with a shovel.

     Thank you for reminding me of this.  I forgot to add; I found 
that it helped a bit to chop the clay up with a hoe, and then shovel 
the chopped pieces.  I found that the sand abraded it into a smooth 
mixture whether I used chopped clay or whole shovel-fulls, but the 
chopped clay mixed faster.

-Speireag.
-- 
To face death, live.

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