(Hi guys, I'm new here.)
I live in CNY, about 20mi south of Lake Ontario. It's very windy and wet here, with heavy snowfall, and it seems like a lot of other Earth building resources focus on building in warm, arid regions. My soil has very poor drainage, so I'm thinking I likely have a clay-rich subsoil. I'll do a jar test when it warms up a little.
I'm building the shed mostly for a place to build a forge in to experiment with metalworking (although I'll also be storing the lawnmower in there to get it out from under my porch), so I've been looking at options for low-cost fire-resistant walls and arrived at cobwood, which interested me for two reasons:
1) I intend to
sell this property if I can ever afford a better one, so that it can be demolished and buried on-site is good.
2) I'm interested in cobwood specifically because I'd like to start building in the spring, which might make sourcing
straw difficult, and also because I have a nature-felled Willow I need something to do with anyway.
My main question is the foundation - it seems like a
concrete foundation is just simply my best option given the wetness, poor drainage, etc. Are there any other better options besides stone (there's a gravel pit nearby, but I have no idea where to source larger stone locally. I'm also looking to do this cheaply, and have no clue how much stone costs, but I do know how much concrete costs).
I already have a fairly large pile of waste concrete (I've only kept it around because a neighbor was picking off it to build a retaining wall). I don't think it will be enough to do the entire foundation if I just stack it, though. So can I break this up into small pieces, wet it, and use it to stretch new concrete mix? Or am I best off just pouring all new concrete? Or maybe pouring new concrete to ground level, and stacking this with mortar for a stone-like appearance?
(I can always use this concrete for the floor, so I'm fine with not using it for the foundation, but I'd rather use it there if I can)
Also, what's the best way to affix a wood-framed roof to a cobwood structure? Just set a 2x6 or something in the top to fasten to, and drive some spikes into the
wood? Or
cob around a frame mounted to the foundation (and does this frame need standard stud spacing, or is a wider spacing acceptable)?