Interior Stucco and Humidity
1 11 2008
We’ve started doing interior stucco and almost immediately ran into a few stumbling blocks. Number one was the fact that without horse manure in the stucco the mixer didn’t do as good a job mixing the product. Apparently the manure was acting to keep the clay in the mix from clumping together and when we tried to mis the stucco without it all we got was a mixer full of wet sand and hard clay lumps. We would then have to mix the resulting mess by hand, essentially making the mixer useless.
The second issue was the straw bales were starting to mold after we applied slip to the wall. This was much more worrisome than the clay not mixing in. This was the inside of our house where our new born was going to be living and breathing, with mold on the walls! We theorize that there must be mold spores on the straw and that when the wet slip was sprayed onto the walls it gave the spores the moisture needed to bloom. And because we were spraying inside, and much thicker than we did outside it was taking a long time to dry. Laine did some internet researching and we decided to try spraying the walls with pure white vinegar. This seemed to kill the blooms and inhibit the mold from coming back. We also got two dehumidifiers to run full time inside and keep the wood stove going round the clock to help dry things out.
Categories : Shire Strawbale Home
