Building with Cob
Cob is an ancient and simple building material. Made of soil, sand, straw and water, it can last for decades, sometimes centuries, and is an inexpensive, local, green building material.
The Cob Builders Handbook says,
“The three most common forms of earth buildings are adobe, rammed earth and cob. In the southwestern United States, the five hundred year old Taos Pueblo, as well as many homes and churches, are made of adobe. Adobe is a form of building using unfired earth. Dirt, straw and water – the same ingredients as in cob – are made into bricks which are then sun dried and built into walls with a “cob-like” mortar. Some very old Native American structures like the Casa Grande ruin in Arizona are made out of cob. These are described locally as being built of “puddled or coursed adobe”.”
This spring, Green-Trust will be building a generator and wood boiler shed with cob, in preparation for building a few homes as well.
Resources:
http://beckybee.net/
http://weblife.org/cob/index.html
http://www.housealive.org/
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/cob.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_%28material%29
http://www.cobcottage.com/
Related posts:
- Designing & Building Natural Homes
- Earthwood Building School
- Timber Framing Class at Earthwood
- Building the Battery Box
- Our vegetable oil burner has arrived
