Cheese Floor

Medieval Cheese Floor

Notes from on site

An earthen floor is not the obvious choice for a building of my size, but as we do not have proper foundations and as I am working with straw, these are a bit lighter than other masonry building materials. Heavy building materials need proper foundations. This being a fun experimental project for TV is an exception. The weight of clay will be kept to a minimum as its only 75mm thick. It will sit on a home made site sourced alternative to battened plywood between the floor joists.

The main components used here were sand and chalk, with clay and milk as binders. Clay shrinks as it dries and cracks; sand, grit and chalk reduce the shrinkage. You can of course just keep filling the cracks up with more clay until it looks ok.

 Generally: too much sand = a crumbly mix; too little sand = a cracking mix.

The Cheese Floor

The Cheese floor is a medieval method of adding a fine finish to a earth floor.

Unpasteurized milk is said to be best.  Though there are no exact measurements for any of it.  Guess work is the best way forward. I will start testing when this rain stops!

the laying of the floor.