Green Living: Clay Plasters

Beautify and simplify with a natural earthen plaster covering for your home. Earthen plasters are available in sensational colors and tones. They offer a less toxic option for your walls. Earthen plasters are a green alternative to many other wall coverings, which makes them appealing to the environmentally-conscious. Earthen Plasters are also easily repaired and inexpensive. Earth plasters resist water penetration but are permeable to water. Read more about Earthen Clay Plasters below. Share your New England green business products and services with us. Contact us for information about featuring your “green” New England business in NE Living Magazine.

Interiors Green Shots:

CLAY: Earth Plasters In Practice

By Jessica Goldblatt Barber; Owner/Operator Interiors Green, a Green Living store in Littleton, NH.

Warm to the touch in winter and cool to the touch in summer, clay plasters bring health, comfort and what can be described as organic, biological, and living beauty to interior spaces. Earth or clay plaster is a blend of clay, fine aggregate, with addition of fiber and pigment, depending on the look one wants to achieve.

Earth materials were used extensively in buildings of all sorts prior to the 19th century. The disappearance was not because the material was considered primitive or inadequate in any way, but because of the changing economic conditions of the time. This is an important fact to remember when looking at clay plasters in practice. Plasters have endured for centuries precisely because they perform so well.
Earthen plasters are wonderfully environmental in their primitiveness, as they are not synthetic or a result of any high-energy processes. They are less toxic and energy-intensive than many other wall coverings. They provide protection, structural and insulating abilities as well as gorgeous texture and color, bringing a space to life.

The health and structural benefits of using clay plasters in a home abound. Because the rate at which clay plasters absorb moisture is much higher than that of other materials (timber, for example, takes in and releases large quantities of moisture but over a much longer period), clay plasters can act to protect vulnerable organic materials (and in particular timber) from high levels of relative humidity, when microbial and insect attacks can be triggered.

In addition to the building benefits of clay, the hygroscopic qualities mean that molds caused by condensation are minimized and that a relative humidity of 50 to 60% is maintained. This is the ideal level for healthy mucous membranes of the human body, and also for the control of dust mites and other organisms that affect human health.

Clay plasters are very forgiving and easy to use even to a novice plasterer. However, very fine smooth finishes require practice or professional experienced help to perfect—something Interiors Green can help you with.

Preparation: Clay plasters can either be made from local soil with a careful processor can be bought in a proprietary form from companies such as American Clay Plasters.

Application: Clay plasters may be applied like any other plaster, troweled by hand or by spray application onto standard drywall, concrete block, brick, and many other substrates. Where exposed to the direct spray of water, (in showers, just above sinks, and in other vulnerable areas) it is necessary to use tiling or some other impermeable material. It is also suggested that timber is preferable to clay plaster for lining the reveals (perimeters at the wall-window intersections) around cold windows where condensation occurs frequently on the frames. Where clay plasters get wet only occasionally, a coat of casein, silicate paint, or limewash is usually sufficient protection.

Visit Interiors Green store on Main Street in Bethlehem, NH to see some of our beautiful American Clay plaster finishes and colors applied to the walls of our store. We can answer any further questions you may have on this enduring, beautiful, healthy finish and how it can be used in your home. Clay plasters have many complex qualities and require a proper understanding. Given that understanding, they can perform very effectively, and are durable as well as amazingly attractive!

NE PRODUCTS | GREEN LIVING | ORGANIC BEDDING | CLAY PLASTERS