[papercreters] Re: newbie Carolyn Roberts plastered home with lime

What she said....

I posted something about this a while ago, but it got lost in cyber space.

Last time I slaked some lime I had a 50 gallon drum of water boiling with the heat of reaction. You could feel the heat radiating off the drum. That was with lump lime, average lump size around 1 3/4" of an inch. It reacted for hours. I shudder to think of the reaction had that been powdered lime.

Incidentally, what that guy was doing goes against what I was taught. To get the best results the lime should be slaked for weeks if not months. I have some under the house that's been in water for two years. When I want to make a waterproof lime wash I use linseed oil as an admixture. It emulsifies nicely with the lime, still breathes and doesn't go mouldy like lard does. There is no advantage to putting the wash on hot, and some disadvantages. The longer the wash can be kept wet on the wall, the better it sticks, the reaction with the CO2 needs to take place in the presence of water so the lime doesn't dry out and go chalky before it has a chance to react. I'm sure with a bunch of lard in there it seems to stick OK at the time though. I use no more than 10% linseed oil by volume and usually a lot less, and this is plenty to make it waterproof. Paint it on and mist the wall with water constantly for a couple of days. Recoat before the first coat has dried, so they react together.

Burns like a b@st@rd too if it's dry (unslaked) and your hands are wet. Not too good when slaked either. If you happened to be prone to infection you'd need to watch it does to open cuts as it isn't pretty, even without infection you can get some nice ulcer things.

Just wear gloves and glasses and be done with it.

Trev

--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, Charmaine Taylor <charmainertaylor@...> wrote:
>
> Carolyn Roberts the strawbale builder and book author was hospitalized
> with severe lime burns to her hands because during a full lime training
> session with Bill Steen, the bale guru...he never once advised using gloves
> she told me. So like most she assumed it was safe.. because she got no
> serious warning. He assumed people would use common sense and not stick
> bare hands in any building material, Therein lies my concern. And that was
> hydrated lime, not hot lime.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/House-Straw-Odyssey-Natural-Building/dp/1890132306/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353876298&sr=1-19&keywords=straw+bale+home
>
> I will tolerate any amount of cheeky derision and silly bitch slapping if
> one person on this list, or who reads it in future, is helped.
>
> Quick lime/hot lime is dangerous for the casual user. Thats why you can't
> get access easily in the US.
>
> The US lime industry has perfected the burning and making of lime for
> building and plaster use.. no black coal bits, no popping and pitting of
> unslaked lime later, no bad feeble lime is sold.
>
> I am certain the Brit home made kiln produced a feebly reactive hot lime...
> it only boils and heats up during slaking. a refined, pure highly reactive
> lime would have behaved far differently if handled like that. nuff said?
>
> Maybe someone can troll the youtubes for the latests *papercrete *vids..
> and share here, they are popping up all the time.
>
>
>
> --
> *Charmaine *
>
> Charmaine Taylor/Publishing & Elk River Press
> PO Box 375 Cutten CA 95534
> www.papercrete.com
>
>
> *Michel de Montaigne:* "The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual
> cheerfulness."
>
>
>
> *Socrates:* "He is the richest who is content with the least."
>




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