[GSBN] Earthen Floors (resilience)

Tue Jan 10 18:34:11 UTC 2012

Ah lying on granite - reminds of the many healing techniques that employ laying on the ground.. now you never heard of a healer or body worker asking someone to lie down on concrete...

And piping in as a long time/life time dancer/ performer/ choreographer and contact improvisor (think lots of bare foot contact with surfaces and bodies flying and falling) there is a great difference in materials and the body knows.  When dancing on concrete you hear a lot about shin splints and a plethora of other body ailments.  Soft landings are just not soft on concrete even with the most skilled fliers.  But luscious gravity defying leaps and landings become available to the dancer on wood and adobe.  One of my favorite dance floors is in a building in Northern New Mexico.  Dirt floor - tamped and sealed.  Which brings me to another point that wafted through my mind last night...

It seems we agree that a capillary break - rock - below an adobe floor and a sealer on top or intrinsic would be good at deterring/ blocking the migrating organisms.  Has anyone installed or witnessed a compacted dirt floor that is sealed?  And would it be a sufficient barrier?  I have seen two in a single house where the floors were both tamped dirt.  Over time the family decided to seal it to minimize the sprinkled water dust regime. I'm not clear what they sealed it with, but not linseed oil.  Then over time (this was a four generation household) they started installing adobe floors over the tamped earth floors and sealing this - first they were blood floors, later linseed oil.  In 2002 we tore out the floor in one room and installed a new adobe floor on the exposed dirt.  There were 5 layers of floors.  All different textures/ wild soils but all native to the area.  The later sealed floors were tough and not as easy to separate from the layers.  They held their form.  

Given the discussion of hook worm it is worth noting that this house had indoor plumbing, and an outhouse before that was installed.  Poor sanitation was not their problem as may be in other situations.

And from there, in the middle of the night, I started imagining a collaboration with the organizations, presumably NGO's, who are working in these hookworm infested dirt floor lands and 'educating' the locals about concrete - or sanitation - or helping develop water and sanitation.  Would it be helpful to develop a guideline to 'better' dirt floors? Starting with the most efficient/ simple solutions and progressing from there.  If one solution would be to wet, tamp and seal already existing dirt floors, and it led to an increase in health... well you get my drift.  An no I'm not necessarily volunteering but definitely fantasizing.

And thank you for your time.
Signing off from the rolling ocean.

Tracy

Quoting RT <archilogic at yahoo.ca>:

> Below is a forwarded message from Woof-Man (aka "Sleeps With Sled 
> Dogs" Sherwood Botsford" one of the earliest contributors to the old 
> CREST SB List).
>
> re: Dancers
>
> It might be useful to mention the technique of creating "sprung 
> floors" for wooden floor surfaces like those in gymnasia.
>
> The "give" is not from the surface material (ie the hardwood) which 
> you'll agree isn't very resilient ... just have someone smack you 
> with a baseball bat or hockey stick if in doubt).
>
> Also it might be worth mentioning the "barefoot running" phenomena 
> that seems to be popular these days amongst "joggers", most of which 
> one notes, are doing so in urban scenarios (ie pavement).
>
> Don't ask me what's going on there. I stopped "jogging" decades ago 
> and prefer cycling (easier on the old knees).
>
> The "finding comfort even when sleeping on the rock of the Canadian 
> Shield" which Woof-Man mentions:
> Here in Southern Ontario we call it finding a spot with "bum holes" 
> ... hollows or indentations in the earth or rock which allow our bums 
> to be at a different level than the rest of our bodies.
>
> ------ Forwarded message -------
> From: "Sherwood Botsford" <sgbotsford at gmail.com>
> To: archilogic at yahoo.ca
> Cc:
> Subject: Resiliant floors.
> Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:07:36 -0500
>
> I'm not sanctioned on this list, so I'll respond to you directly.
> Feel free to forward to the list if you feel it appropriate.
>
> Bob has a point about dancers. I know my mom said that standing at the
> sink doing the dishes was NOT the same as standing by the wringer
> washer (concrete floor) doing the laundry.  I know that putting a pad
> down on the floor makes a big difference, even though the deflection
> at human foot pressures probably requires a micrometer to measure.
>
>  From personal experience when running barefoot, asphalt 'feels' more
> giving than concrete.
>
> Into my 50's I spent 2-3 weeks a year canoeing on the Canadian shield.
>   Some of the most comfortable nights I spent were on glacially planed
> granite.  An absolutely flat chunk was painful.  But most of the time
> the glaciers were good enough to scoop hollows.  Squirm around a bit,
> and you'd find one that fit.
>
> Consider that for a stone floor on wooden joists, they tell you to
> stiffen up the floor until the deflection is 1/720 of the span.  Which
> again translates into far more deformation of the foot than of the
> subfloor.
>
> Whatever we are perceiving, I don't think it is the 'give' of the surface.
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Sherwood of Sherwood's Forests
>
> Sherwood Botsford
> Sherwood's Forests --  http://Sherwoods-Forests.com
> 780-848-2548
> 50042 Range Rd 31
> Warburg, Alberta T0C 2T0
> =============== end of forwarded material ===============
>
> -- 
> === * ===
> Rob Tom
> Kanata, Ontario, Canada
>
> < A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a  >
> (manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")
> _______________________________________________
> GSBN mailing list
> GSBN at sustainablesources.com
> http://sustainablesources.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/GSBN
>

Tracy Thieriot
Tactile Plastering
707-621-1484cell
www.tactileplastering.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sustainablesources.com/pipermail/gsbn/attachments/20120110/9723d335/attachment.htm>