Cob construction

There are cob houses in Devonshire England dating from the 14th century.
I don't think of that as a dry climate.

My slight experience with cob has shown me that this is NOT a simple material. It is not a do it your self type of project. Please be sure to use an expert before sinking a bunch of money into your home.

 

I would suggest people take a workshop or go to a workparty first. I took a great one this summer with House Alive. They let me do some sculpture and mosaics on the sides of the house, it was very fulfilling. I left with a feeling of confidence and a whole new view of the world.

http://www.housealive.org/

Cob Cottage co. has a list of workshops here-

http://www.cobcottage.com/cob-workshop.html

And in the northeast there is a list of both workshops and workparties, which is basically like old-time barn raisings-

http://www.spiralworks.org/mainpages/Workshopindex.04.html

From what I have read and experienced, the hardest part of building a cob house is making sure your foundations and roofs are good. The walls themselves are fun to build and it is easy to find people to help in exchange for learning.

Codes can also be an issue, if you are building where there are codes. You can always just say you are building an adobe or strawbale house and no one will know the difference if you encoorperate them in part. Another common tactic is to use a cheap mobile as your residence and build small cob "outbuildings" which dont need to be code approved.

I think the most important thing I can highlight is this:

People work 8-10 hours a day at jobs they hate for morgages or rents they can't afford, in part because they think it would be too hard to build their own house. Tell me what is wrong with THAT picture?

Okay, you can tell I'm obsessed, LOL! Take care guys