Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Friday, February 05, 2010

Pal Pot

Nope, this is not about any misspelt Cambodian dictator.

This is a masonry activity that is common at pR.

All water storage (for immediate use) is done in earthen (aka clay) pots (they are spread over the topography at pR and are one of the beautiful sights over here. see carefully below (left photo) for the 3 pots in the background and the right is the 2 beauts in the bathroom.

And each of them is a lovley mini-elephant, over 100 lts in volume.

For newcomers to earthenware, clay pots are porous. i.e., stored water is likely to ooze out slowly (this aids evaporative cooling – the scientific reason why water stored in clay pots are cool). This will lead to algal formation on the pots (inside and outside).

To prevent this, the pots have to coated on the inside with a cement mixutre .

Cement is mixed with water and taken to the consistency of pal (tamil for milk)). There is no sand added. This mixture is called cement pal.

This is painted with a regular paint brush. The pal coats the inside to provide the leak-proofing.

Two coats of the pal should be done to ensure full leak prevention.

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