cob or dirt floors

Anybody have experience with this sort of thing? 

What might be the simplest thing one might try?  Perhaps a whole lot of linseed oil tossed onto some dusty dirt?

Well... no, but I did help edit a book on the subject, and the term most used is Earthen Floors.

I have a copy of the first draft  if you don't get the info you seek here.

Compression is the key to this.  You can tamp the floor layer by layer with a bit of moisture.

I went a different route.  I used compressed earth blocks and layed them as a floor with sand in the cracks.  Very fast, very easy, super cheap (less than $.40 per square foot.)

Check it out:
http://www.velacreations.com/cebfloors.html

I have done cob and soil cement floors, Paul.  The cob is by far a better floor.

Clay about 30%, Sand including all aggregates in your clay if natural clay, 70% (at my place that works out to about 50/50) Straw so a good amount is in every handful.

Trowel it smooth.  Let it shrink and crack as it likes.  Fill the cracks with a well sanded clay sand  grout to prevent shrinkage.  Put about 4 coats of boiled linseed oil and let dry.  Keep brushes and paper clean up materials disposed of safely as they can spontaneously combust if in a pile creating a fire.

After the linseed oil dried we put an acrylic sealer on top of it.  A durable soft floor with a feel  and texture/softness like linoleum.

I had trouble finding a good pix of it but here is a bit of it in the foreground of the cob conversation pit area.  The step is cob also.  It's been there for about 8 years and the only damage is a tree root growing under it cracking it a bit.

building cob floors

I would love to see more examples of both dirt and cob floors.  This sounds really neat.  

Dirt is not nice.

I've done cob floors. I ferment the cob with cow manure for a good four days, turning every day. It gives it much greater strength and smoothness.

I’m also really interested to see any pictures people may have of these types of floors finished.

I want to build a natural home, but in order to keep my husband on board I will need great pictures since the words cob floor don’t sound very pretty.

some experiments this year

This video has inspired me to finish my (very small) greenhouse floor. I want more thermal mass, and I had gotten hung up on finding free bricks to use. Bricks are very hard to find where I live because they cost a fortune to ship. But I have a whole lake shore of sand free for the shoveling. Maybe I'll just suck up the cost of linseed oil and make a sand/oil floor instead!