anyone here ever built a cob house?

[Gato Moteado]

any DUers ever built a cob house?

i want to start building some cob cabins on my properties and i'd love to get you down here if you could give me some guidance or help out.

or, if you want to hold a cob building (or any type of sustainable building) seminar or workshop, i have the venue. you could do it on my 50 acre rain forest property on the pacific coast.

if you know how to build cob structures, let's talk!

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. Check out the University of Washington...

In conjunction with the cob house project in 2007 I think.

[Gato Moteado]

41. great article......

....i love this quote by ianto evans, who leads workshops:

"We take people assuming they've never hung a shelf," Evans said. "Quite astonishingly to me, people go away and build a house."

[defendandprotect]

2. What are they?

[bettyellen]

3. Cob is an adobelike mix of clay, sand and straw that traditionally is formed by hand into curvy

sinuous shapes. The building method is making a comeback among green-minded consumers.

[defendandprotect]

4. What does it go on top of ... or is this more like adobe?

And not simply a fascade?

[Gato Moteado]

42. watch this.....

http://www.davidsheen.com/firstearth/english/

[Terry in Austin]

74. Wow -- just wow!

This should be required viewing for anyone who doesn't live in a village.

Thanks, Gato!

[Gato Moteado]

78. glad you liked it!

nt

[defendandprotect]

83. Fantastic -- !! Thank you --

Watched probably 75% of it or more --

Wonderfully done -- and had no idea how old the idea was.

Saved it -- don't understand all of it quite yet --

And amazing how unbelievably creative you can be with it --

Always loved the "long houses" -- and then you see these unbelievable

apartment houses!


:)

[Gato Moteado]

84. i think everyone should build one!

nt

[Alameda]

5. Have you heard of Cal Earth?

http://calearth.org/ They do beautiful work. Check them out.

[Gato Moteado]

43. yes, i've seen their website before......

....great stuff.

thanks!

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. Considered paper-crete?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papercrete

[Gato Moteado]

44. i've consideerd everything including rammed earth, strawbale,.......

adobe, bamboo, earthbag - you name it.

i've taken a look at all of them and right now it seems that cob is going to be the easiest in terms of getting the materials (most are already on the site as our soil is rich in clay) and the most suitable for the climate.

[localroger]

7. Overview

Cob is great if you live close to where you're building and can devote your spare time to incremental construction. In absolute terms it is incredibly labor intensive and awkward, but if the labor is "free" because you don't have to travel and can spend what would otherwise be wasted time laying cob, then you're golden. In a year or two you can have a couple of thousand square feet of house for the price of a few bags of portland cement. But it will take a year or two.

Papercrete is much faster but needs to be carefully shielded from moisture; in a wet environment it just doesn't work. Most papercrete structures are in desert environments for this reason. I looked into it very closely and decided that it wouldn't really work in Mississippi, where I was looking to build.

The other thing which I was looking into before the housing market collapsed and I realized I wouldn't be able to sell my normal house was thin-shell ferrocement with galvanized armature. Concrete generally doesn't work in thicknesses less than 4 inches because of Co2 intrusion and corrosion of the rebar, but with galvanized hardware cloth as the reinforcement thin shells become practical which aren't ridiculously heavy for residential construction. Add curved surfaces for built-in strength and spray on polyurethane foam insulation, and you might have something similar to a monolithic dome but that could be built incrementally like a cob house and much cheaper than the dome.

[Shagbark Hickory]

8. No and not to nitpick but.. is a 50 acre rainforest parcel sustainable?

Just curious.

[Gato Moteado]

10. by itself, in the middle of a deforested area - probably not

luckily, i'm surrounded by other forest.

but some of the neighbors have cattle out on their properties. if you ever want to chuck it all in the US and live in the tropics, let me know and maybe you can buy a neighboring property and reforest the cleared areas. every little bit helps.

[Shagbark Hickory]

22. OK,. here's the problems with that.

You're surrounded by other forest but even just your home is impacting the environment in ways that may not be that evident to you.
Habitat fragmentation, ground and surface water contamination (from innocent everyday stuff), the resources it takes to get anywhere or get anything.

The fact that companies like walmart are going to look at the demographics of an area and see that people are moving into an area and buying 50 acre parcels, they have a certain amount of income that makes sense for a walmart store. Then you have a walmart. Then you have all the stores that follow walmart. Then you have the roads, schools.

Someday you may decide to sell. The buyer has other plans for the property. They want a home golf course, they want to store some junk cars, they want to clear the trees for money or because they don't like shade, or they want to drive 4 wheelers all over the place.

What you're doing by living in the middle of a rainforest is tipping the dominoes towards the inevitable; sprawl.

I believe every square inch of land should be carefully managed and planned. I'm not saying it has to be like canada or europe or anything, where everyone lives in an attached garage-mahal, but certainly 50 ac is excessive for a single family home.

Frankly, I'd rather you say that you were going to clear it all and build condos.
If everyone lived on 400 times the amount of land that they need, there would be no natural areas left.

[Gato Moteado]

24. i appreciate your concern and information.........but.....

i don't see any of your worries becoming an issue on my property - i'm worried about neighboring properties that are managed very poorly. and if i could have afforded 500 or 5000 acres when i came, instead of just 50, i can assure you i would have bought that much land. i'm a rainforest wildlife freak and have been all my life.

what we've done is to buy small rain forest properties (and by rain forest i mean we have a mixture of old growth forest, secondary forest, and cleared areas) and started reforesting with native hardwoods and have tried to influence our neighbors to do the same. we are protecting the native wildlife from poachers and keeping an eye on the land management practices of our neighbors and when we see people illegally cutting trees or using chemicals near a stream or spring we immediately notify the government. locals are already driving 4-wheelers all over the place and illegally cutting trees - we're trying to curb those activities not add to them.

i don't know if you've ever been to costa rica but a large percentage of it, like just about any latin american country, has been deforested, mainly to make space for the growing need for more cattle for beef. I gave up eating beef (and pork) altogether years ago when i saw how destructive the industry was. i've also been able to persuade a handful of people here in costa rica to either stop eating beef altogether or to cut their intake to once a month - and believe me, that is no easy feat here. agricultural practices of the farmers here is also hideous as they have had herbicides and pesticides pushed on them, and unable to read the english directions on the label (or uninterested in finding out the hazards of these chemicals), these people apply them incorrectly and illegally. we have started showing smaller producers how to make compost and how to amend their soils naturally to cut down on their use of chemicals. i was part of a project up here in the central valley where we were able to get a coffee producing co-op to clean up its retention ponds using beneficial microorganisms to improve the quality of the water there before it goes back into the ground or the streams and also to collect the solid waste from the coffee cleaning process (skins and pulp of the coffee fruit which had been previously been dumped into their retention ponds and nearby streams creating a stinking, rotting mess) to create large compost heaps to allow them to improve the quality of their soil without relying on chemical fertilizers as much.

so my goal here is to try to encourage people from the US and canada and europe to invest in the nearby properties (properties around my rain forest properties) to help me create wildlife corridors between larger protected tracts of land. this means buying properties that are a mixture of old growth and secondary forest or properties that have been completely deforested and need to be reforested with native hardwoods. i am also in the process of starting an organization to raise money to do just that (and more). if you're interested in finding out about the organization or helping out, contact me via private message and i'll give you more information.

i think your statement that you'd rather see me create condos for 400 people on the land is a bit strange. the population density in the area around my property is very low and we'd like to keep it that way, or decrease the density by obtaining as much of the nearby land as possible for preservation.

i have no plans to sell my land, but if i'm forced to do so for economic reasons, i would only sell to a person or organization that will continue to protect it. i can register the property with the government as a preserve before i sell it and that would ensure that the land could never be developed, thus making developers uninterested in it. it's situated on the side of a mountain from the top and down one side of it so it's not suitable for a golf course or a parking lot for cars (too many sloped areas) or a large residential community anyway. it wasn't good for much more than cattle and agriculture and was used for those purposes at some point in the last 20 or 30 years, but the secondary forest is now vibrant and healthy. we have springs and waterfalls on the property as well...something we want to protect from destruction or contamination.

so, we're actually trying to tip the dominoes away from sprawl, not toward it. it is the nearby properties that are closer to main road access, have electricity and more cleared flat land that are more suitable for development. these are the properties we are trying to obtain to block that from potentially happening. maybe you'd be interested in helping us - it sounds like you have the knowledge. we could use your help much more than your criticism. since i've owned the property that i'm speaking of here, we've seen squirrel monkeys and scarlet macaws move back into our forest - both of these animals had been reduced to two isolated populations in costa rica from deforestation. we don't know if they're coming now because their populations are starting to regenerate and they're spreading out or if they're being pushed off other land by deforestation. we hope it's the former. either way, we'd like to enlarge the habitat areas around us to ensure the survival of these two species (and many others) that were once plentiful but are now rare in costa rica.

i, like you, also believe every square inch of land should be carefully managed. that's why we are planning to build our house with cob construction as there are no toxic chemicals or materials used in the process. we plan to incorporate composting toilets if possible and all of our gray water will be processed correctly before going back into the ground and, additionally, we will only use non-toxic and biodegradable cleaning and bath products. this is a huge improvement over the people that lived on the property before i bought it.

i sold everything i had in the US about 7 years ago so that i could buy some rain forest properties to preserve. i spent it all on land (i own or am a part owner of three rain forest properties). for the majority of my time here, i've scraped by and lived without much (luckily i've always had an internet connection). things are finally starting to look up, economically speaking, for us and we hope to be spending more time on our rain forest properties and, preferably, splitting time living on them and getting out of the central valley altogether.

i don't know what you do for a living, Shagbark Hickory, but i do know that, like me and everyone else, you enjoy breathing oxygen created by the forests and, either directly or indirectly, you benefit from the biodiversity of the planet. you obviously have a lot of knowledge and a great passion for sustainability and ecology. if you have the economic means (and i realize that very few do, these days) why not come down and buy some property close to mine (rain forest is cheap compared to land in urban USA) and show us how to do it right. i appreciate the criticism and concern, but we could really sure use the help instead, right now.

Pura Vida!

[Shagbark Hickory]

62. I have several questions for you.

At this property, do you or does anyone that lives in the household:
1.) have any pets or livestock?
2.) produce/harvest your own electricity, water, and food?
3.) park an automobile?
4.) receive US mail or parcels (ups, fedex, etc)?
5.) have children that attend school?

also, did you set up a land trust or something in the will for what happens to the land if you die?

Also just want to make sure we're talking about the USA, right?
You mentioned costa rica. That's not my area.

[Gato Moteado]

64. the property is in costa rica....

...i don't know of any tropical rain forest in the contiguous 48.....only temperate rain forest in the pacific northwest.

currently there are no pets and livestock on the property (i'm not living there yet). there will be dogs, which will remain fenced in when not supervised. probably will also keep a small flock of chickens for eggs.

we will produce our own electricity (solar and/or hydro). water comes out of the springs year round. we plan to produce our own food via organic gardening and hydroponics. of the fifty acres (actually it's 60 now as we recently bought an adjoining 10 acre piece of dense forest), we will only use a couple acres, that are already clear and have been for decades, for housing and growing food.....the rest is rain forest.

don't park an automobile yet but certainly will need to in the future.

fedex, UPS, etc would not deliver to the remote area we are in and we only have a dirt road leading in to the property anyway.

no children.

don't have a land trust set up yet but that's on the agenda.

[Shagbark Hickory]

79. Ok nevermind. I thought you were talkin bout the USA.

I don't think you have a sprawl problem there yet but I could be wrong.

Then again you're in the jungles of south america and you're ONLINE so I suppose anything's possible.

[Gato Moteado]

81. well......no sprawl problem in the place where my properties are....

....but there certainly is a rural community and there are people there.

and, believe it or not, Costa Rica is in North America - we're just north on Panama and the Panama Canal is considered to be the spot where the two continents connect.

i'm not in the jungle (or, rain forest, to be exact) at the moment.....i live just outside the capital city of Costa Rica. My rain forest properties are down near the coast.

the offer still stands if you want to invest in some rain forest here near mine.....i'll help you purchase and reforest.

[Shagbark Hickory]

86. I knew you were gonna say that.

Are you sure it's not in central america at least?

[Gato Moteado]

89. yeah, we're definitely in central america, but......

central america is a political division, not a continent. we're definitely on the north american continent.

[Shagbark Hickory]

94. If that doesn't demonstrate my lack of knowledge about costa rica, nothing will.

My parent's cleaning lady is from from there.
With the money she makes cleaning houses here, she buys and sells houses in costa rica.
A regular real estate mogul.

[Gato Moteado]

98. so when are you coming down to help us buy up more rain forest?????

once you got a look at the place, i bet you wouldn't want to go back to the states.

[tekisui]

11. I don't understand the question.

Why wouldn't it be sustainable?

[Jamastiene]

17. If the areas around it were clear cut,

it would make it less sustainable because it would slowly lose its ability to retain the moisture, nutrients, and organisms needed to remain rainforest. You have more problems with flooding, desertification, erosion, and loss of the variety of organisms and tree canopy layers to keep it protected. OP has the right idea, but I'd like to see the area around it protected too. Wish I had the money to invest in buying and protecting any still forested areas around it.

[Gato Moteado]

26. i wish you could help too......

....we are reforesting previously cleared areas on several properties but we can't always control what the neighbors do.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. What jamastiene said and also for these reasons...

What if everyone in the country lived on a 50 acre lot? Regardless of whether it was a rain forest or old farm land...
How is this good practice with such a rapidly growing population and zero planning for said growth, little infrastructure investment in many of the areas that you'd find a 50 acre parcel. Not only does this make it use a lot of resources to get anywhere or get anything, it also can have adverse effects on wildlife populations.

You know, someone like me may own a 50 acre parcel and never shoot a single critter. Hell, everyone might never shoot anything. But if instead of 0.125 of an acre or .25 acre, people lived on 400 times that much land, it really doesn't help to conserve natural areas. And it leads to fragmentation of wildlife habitats. Not to mention the toll it takes on people's social interaction with other people.

What if the OP had nothing but the best of intentions for the land but some day OP decides to sell. The new owners have other plans for the parcel. They want a home golf course, they want to store some junk cars, they want to clear the trees for money or because they don't like shade, or they want to drive 4 wheelers all over the place.

Nothing against the OP, A 50 acre residential parcel is unsustainable in my view.

If you want to conserve natural areas, you must resist the temptation to build on it because that tips the dominoes and after a while that will become subdivisions, shopping centers and warehouses. And of course roads, highways, SCHOOLS, the whole 9 yards.

I believe every square inch of land should be carefully managed and planned. I'm not saying it has to be like canada or anything, where everyone lives in an attached garage-mahal, but certainly 50 ac is excessive.

[Gato Moteado]

25. see post #24 please

nt

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. instructions

http://www.dreamgreenhomes.com/plans/solaroval1.htm

[Gato Moteado]

46. i just bookmarked that one......

thanks.....i like the size and efficiency of that cabin. i think the first project will be something just like it!

[tblue37]

12. My friend's mother did. She built a cob house on some land she owns here in

Kansas, and is now expanding it.

[Gato Moteado]

14. cool! do you have any photos of it?

i love seeing what other people have done with cob.

[tblue37]

60. No, but my friend does. I will PM her email addy so you can contact her.

(Needless to say, I asked her permission to do so.)

Also, her mother is the sort who might well be interested in giving talks, joining seminars, and participating in panel discussions about her project. She is a former English instructor at the same university I teach at, and she is very articulate and loves, loves, loves to go on at length about this project. It is one of her great life passions, and she'd love to help others do the same sort of thing!

[Change has come]

13. Here is a website that shows the process.

There are tons of links and pictures showing how this guy built his small cob hut. It is fascinating.

http://small-scale.net/yearofmud/2009/08/21/you-can-build-this-cob-house-for-3000/

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

15. We built a small cob shed with a metal roof to house a fuel tank

For the local Volunteer Fire Dept. We didn't put a final stucco or beeswax/turpentine/linseed oil mix over the cob so it has been washing away on the South side and growing moss on the North side. You can't go up very quickly because it has to dry enough to support the weight as you build. We still need to pack the edges where it shrunk away from the 'trex' material we used to mount the door and attach the metal roof. We did a concrete foundation to build the cob wall on. Some stack rocks to make a foundation to keep the cob from contact with the earth.

We used a cement mixer rather than mixing in a boat or by hand on a tarp, but that may have been why it was so wet and would sag. It was my first and only try, but I like it.

Good Luck,
ADW

[Gato Moteado]

16. wish you could come down and build with us here......

.....that would be cool.

[Jamastiene]

18. I don't know, but I will K&R

so you can get the answers.

I'm so jealous I don't own that much rainforest. I'll admit it. I wish I could afford it.

K&R. Hope you get your answers and keep protecting that rainforest.

[Gato Moteado]

51. while the real estate prices have rocketed here in costa rica......

....there is still affordable rain forest property in some areas. if you ever have some extra cash, consider buying some before somebody wants to deforest it for more cattle.

i am happy to help any DUer looking for an escape valve who would be interested in living in a place like this. i know where there are still some deals on land down here and i'm always looking for green-minded people that want to live in a place that they can also reforest and help build wildlife corridors.

[Codeine]

20. Living on 50 acres and pretending you're "green" or sustainable is silly. nt

[Gato Moteado]

27. replying smugly like that before knowing the whole story doesn't seem helpful to me.....

....see post #24 for more information.

i'm looking for people that know about the problems, know how to resolve them and want to do something to make a difference.....having criticism and insults lobbed at us by armchair quarterbacks doesn't help much.

[Earth_First]

31. So it pretending that you are so much more superior to those around you... n/t

[Gato Moteado]

34. i don't feel all that offended by it......

...because i know i've probably done the same thing as that poster at times. i'm no angel.

if i've gotten them to respond at all, even in a flippant manner like that, it could mean that, at the very least, they are as concerned as i am about the environment (specifically the neotropical rain forest) and with a little nudging they can be cajoled from sitting back and lobbing criticism into getting into action to make a difference, no matter how small or large. i'll take all the help i can get right now.

[rucky]

21. Hit the Mother Earth News website

they have 20 years of back-issues you can search through. I know they've covered this more than once.

[Gato Moteado]

38. hey....thanks for the idea.....

i'll check it out.

i've actually been researching cob construction for over 10 years. i've read so much about it and hopefully within the next few months i'll actually start on my own projects. i'm looking for people that have successfully done it....maybe someone wants to come down here for an extended vacation and work with us.

if you're interested in the subject of cob houses, you've gotta see this 12 part video about it:
http://www.davidsheen.com/firstearth/english/

[here_is_to_hope]

23. The experts are here...

http://www.cobcottage.com/workshops

Ianto (who I will see today) is the cats meow, he and Linda have built all over the world.
And living on 50 acres? Why not? We have 2 sections in Montana, one section has two strawbale homes, the other section, just one.
Both properties are off the grid and as green as the wheat farmers left them.
We have improved them somewhat with native grasses and some well placed watering holes, we have had very little impact on that land.

[Gato Moteado]

28. sounds great!

i wish everyone would research the benefits of cob construction, and other sustainable construction methods, and put them into practice. you actually put your money where your mouth is and people like you are a huge inspiration to me.

by the way, i saw your PM....we're in costa rica and we'd love to have you come down here and spend some time with us!

[Gato Moteado]

30. by the way, i have a couple of ianto's and linda's books.....

....i've been researching cob for about 10 or 12 years and i'm hopeful that this spring i will finally start getting my hands dirty.

[Octafish]

29. Know near-nothing about it...until now.

Thanks for the heads-up, Gatito! Fascinating topic!



http://www.builditgreen.co.za/GoingGreen/EarthHouses.aspx

[Gato Moteado]

32. once you start reading about it.....

...you can't stop. and then you veer off into other types of sustainable construction. there's a boatload of ways to build that most people don't know about. we're stuck thinking that our toxic, square, boxy, concrete and wood houses are the only option.

[Earth_First]

33. I was just reading about this (again) last night...

It's been a passionate reading hobby of mine for some time now.

The wife and I may eventually do this.

Good luck!

[Gato Moteado]

35. i've watched videos made by people that have built their own house....

...and they all seemed to say the same thing - that it had a profound effect upon them. the sense of accomplishment of building their own home made them feel like they could do anything they wanted.

there's a great 12 part video on the history, benefits and modern uses of cob construction and it's fascinating.....i'll post a link to the thread.

[Gato Moteado]

36. anyone interested in cob construction (or green building in general) should see this.....

http://www.davidsheen.com/firstearth/english/

it's a 12 part video that covers the history, benefits and modern applications of cob construction. it talks about more than just the sustainable construction of a house, but also about our attitudes of community. very interesting.

[fishwax]

37. I'd love to do that eventually

but it's probably a ways off for me. :)

No expertise to offer, but Good luck!

[Gato Moteado]

39. i hope you can some day!

and if you ever do....we want to see photos!

[Evasporque]

40. Another reason for corn production subsidies.....

Big rural conservatives love getting big pork barrel handouts from Washington in the form of corn production subsidies.

Ethanol, HFCS, now more reason to burn food to make gas and sugar substitute....corn cob homes.

Go hyporcites GO! Big spending GOP loves to give money to big donating Ethanol producers.

[Codeine]

45. Nothing to do with corn cobs. nt

[Gato Moteado]

47. i can't tell if you're serious or joking.......

....watch this if you're confused:
http://www.davidsheen.com/firstearth/english/

but somehow, i think you were joking, right?

[Gato Moteado]

103. as emily litella would say.......

[InvisibleTouch]

48. This sounds fantastic, and I hope you can do it.

Never mind the lamers who are making insulting comments. Sounds like plain old jealousy to me. If I could live in the middle of 50 acres of rainforest, I'd do it in a heartbeat, and you can be sure it would be sustainable and green. And best of all - no neighbors for at least 50 acres!!

What binds me here are my animals, though. Would be hard to move the whole zoo to Costa Rica. So I will have to do the self-sustaining homestead here.

[Gato Moteado]

52. i'll get you down here one of these days......

...and you won't want to leave.

how are all the animals doing, by the way?

[InvisibleTouch]

54. Oh, I know it...

...if I ever get there, I will never want to leave. I really have no significant human ties binding me here, and I can do my work from anywhere with a net connection. But I just couldn't live without the animals, even though the climate would be perfect for them. We all like it warm (well, except for the amphibians). But I just don't see a possibility of getting them down there. :/

Everyone's doing well right now and looking forward to Spring!

[Gato Moteado]

56. yes, one trade off of moving to a place like this is having to rehome.....

...pets that you can't bring here (dogs are easy to get here....exotic reptiles are a bit tougher since permits would be required). but the other side of the coin is that you'll have a seemingly limitless diversity of wild animals all around you every day.

[SoCalDem]

49. No, but I watched a great documentary about hay-bale houses

links to many articles

[Codeine]

50. Strawbale houses look amazing.

Maybe it's just because I grew up chucking bales of hay every morning and evening, but I completely love that concept.

[SoCalDem]

53. apparently, the walls are so thick that the indoor temp is pretty stable all year long

and they are very strong houses too..:)

[here_is_to_hope]

85. Our first Strawbale home

had an estimated R value of 115 in the walls using three tie wheat straw bales. You cant buy that kind of R value!

[FedUpWithIt All]

88. If you don't mine me asking...

Did you build a load bearing or timbered structure? Slab? And what type of ventilation? Any interior moisture issues? Lime plaster?

We're going to begin ours very soon...if all goes well. :)

[here_is_to_hope]

90. Hey, no worries!

Our first was post and beam, strawbale infill. We did it this way because we needed a roof up fast and I wasn't too sure about strawbale walls withstanding the pressures of an octagon 45 feet across.
We used old telephone poles for the posts (22 inches across!) and TJI's for the roof beams.
The floor was mass rammed earth over strawbale with a concrete layer of 2 inches on top of that, tinted dark ochre and rust, the bales sat on a vapor barrier over gravel. We put in rebar stakes and placed our bales right on to the floor, about two feet above exterior grade. We did not excavate and have never had frost heaving or any ice problems.
We left the top of the walls open by boxing 2 by 6's 4 inches apart as beams between joists, this allowed any moisture to wick up and back into the house.
This is in Columbus, Montana so moisture just wasn't an issue really.
We used lime stucco on the outside straight onto the bale, tied onto the posts with metal lathe.
We have special muscles now just for stuccoing...ugh, it's work!
The inside walls we trimmed carefully and used a clay/lime/Portland/sand stucco with lots of sand. The ratio of Portland was very low so it would breathe.

We have been very happy with it, standing 17 years now and not one issue with the house itself though we should have gone with a lower ceiling (22 feet at the center) and better windows than the ones we scrounged from a torned down school.
The place is toasty warm even with poor windows, stays cool in the Summer. It's a passive solar set up with the east and south side having large windows to heat the floor mass up but the eaves are large enough to block that same Sun in the Summer. We used a compass and Solar sightings over the course of a year to line everything up.

The next two we built were more traditional (square) but using the same materials.

We also built a Hippy House for friends, 220 square feet, straw walls on three sides, all window front looking down into a steep canyon. We hinged the simple shed type roof so we can open the entire thing up, the roof attached to poles in front, using 2 by 10's bolted to the poles, I boxed the roof beams and they just sit right on the rear wall. I use a rope and pully set up and I can raise the entire roof up in back about three feet! Really opens the place up to Nature! I did pin the walls top to bottom just in case. We have never stuccoed that little cabin and it's still in great shape after 12 years, it doesnt get any rain or snow on it because of the 4' eaves.
It is powered by an Air 404 into 4 12V batteries to run an on demand 12V water pump from a cistern, all of the lights in it are like our main house, 12V so as to lesson our inverter needs. Even the stereo is out of a car!

The main house has an 8 panel array into a Trace C40, 8 6V batteries, 2000w inverter but the house is wired twice, one circuit is 12V, the other is 120.
I did this because there are many 12V appliances available and inverters are expensive when you get over 2000 watts. We use 12V bulbs for rv's throughout, they fit regular lamps. It also has a car stereo set up to run the sound throughout the house, as well as an on demand pump, compost toilet
We did go with propane for the fridge and water heater as having enough solar to run a regular fridge or water heater was too expensive.

Our big advantage was the bales, right out of the field at .75 each and less than 10 miles away, cut and tied to order.
We collected lumber and materials for two years before starting, hitting farm auctions and buying any lumber or materials that even looked useable.
Our total on the first house was $9000.00, all inclusive, everything but the land. Took two people working almost everyday 9 months.
It is a little more than 1800 square feet!
We did not have any permit issues and State Farm insured the house after a long run around.

Good Luck!

[FedUpWithIt All]

92. Thank you!!!

Seriously, you have become my hero!:toast:

We are moving forward with our own although i'd be lying if i said we are not terrified and more than a little unsure. It is a massive undertaking. I just read your post to my husband and he says it is very nice to hear that it is possible and hear from others who have actually done it.

The main thing that has been worrying us is the cost estimates so many give. They suggest the cost is no different than standard house builds. We have been really trying to step up our creativity in an effort to try and ensure lower costs. My brother is a "foundation and roof" guy and he has been researching the insulated shallow foundations for us. Looks promising and we'd are thinking of trying to combine this with earth bags. It is comforting to hear how long your structures have been standing.

They sound perfectly wonderful. We cannot WAIT. We are also very intrigued by the open roof idea. Do you have any pictures?

If you are not bothered, we might need to run another question or two by you over the next few months.

I wanted to also share that DH and i got a good little laugh over the contrast of our User names. Joked that i'll have to change mine to something a little more positive once we are living in our own green home. :D

[here_is_to_hope]

93. Knowledge is key...

and learning from others' mistakes is even better!
My biggest fear back then was the original house just falling down!
We made some mistakes but none that cost us dearly, more like learning as we went.
The biggest move you could make, before you start building is to gather materials, every piece of milled lumber you can get your hands on. Farm auctions, go picking, ask about every scrap pile you see. Collect urbanite, rocks on the side of the road, whatever you can find for free.
Road sign down on the highway because it was run over? I pick it up, it has a pressure treated 4 by 4 and a big piece of sheet metal, four of those and you have a shed! I pick up driftwood, deadfall, every piece of wood I find, bricks, rocks, larger pallets.
With cob, and to some extent, straw, irregular wood sizes just don't slow you down. We don't measure much in cob or strawbale building, its arms width or head high or 'about so' as we say.
Same with windows, doors and such. I cannot stress enough how much money this will save you. If I recall, our lumber bid was 4400.00 from the local lumber yard, we said no thanks and began the search. We had one lucky break when an apartment building project was cancelled and we picked up 60, 10" by 45' TJI's for 3.00 each!
I had no need for them at the tme but having those engineered joists came in handy when I designed the octagon house.
Well, I could go on for days! There are books and reams of info on the net but be sure to adapt all that you learn to suit you, there are no rules really.
Take care!

[FedUpWithIt All]

95. We got very lucky last summer

We found a couple selling brand new insulated windows for very low cost. We went to purchase them and told the couple our plans. They told us that they were planning to replace the windows on their entire house because the new kind they wanted in the front would no longer match the rest. They ended up saving all of them for us including the pop in muntons and hardware for free. There are 20 some windows, all high efficiency. We will need to build some frames for them but they are perfect. They also asked us later if we wanted similar styled french patio doors. Of course we took them :)

I wish we could go grab a coffee because we could listen to you "go on for days" :)

Have a great evening.

[here_is_to_hope]

96. Yep, you kids are on the right path...

That was us, no house but plenty of doors and windows!
Thats what it takes, we can build homes out of other peoples
"doesn't match" and "wrong color" items.
Love it.
Do you kids have a heavy permit system where you are at? Ohio?

[FedUpWithIt All]

99. We are settling down in WV

Rich heritage, beautiful mountains and wonderful people.


Restrictions and permit issues are not bad here.

[Gato Moteado]

97. don't be terrified........

....just go for it. everything will work out fine.

sounds like you have a great plan!

[FedUpWithIt All]

100. Thank you

I wish you the best with your own plans.

:hi:

[Gato Moteado]

104. i hope you'll post photos.....

....sounds like you'll be getting started right around the time we hope to be really getting into the swing of things.

[InvisibleTouch]

55. This looks really cool too...

...but perhaps not ideal for a humid rainforest climate?

Unless they are so easy to build that you just compost the old material and build a new one very few years?

[Gato Moteado]

57. straw bale is not good for humid climates.....

.....the straw, even though encapsulated, will start to break down and house molds and fungus. additionally, straw is not something i have access to on my property as it is not really grown here.

now, straw is also an ingredient in cob, but it is actually mixed into the mud mixture so it doesn't have the same problems that a straw bale house would have in the tropics. additionally, i can substitute other fibrous material like coconut fiber (which is plentiful here) in place of the straw.

straw bale houses require a huge amount of straw and they are ideal in places like the southwest US. i know someone in the austin area that builds them.

[SoCalDem]

58. surprisingly, the mud/adobe/slurry coat keeps moisture/pests out

I don't know the physics of it, but they are darned near indestructible:)

[sudopod]

59. Sorry about the random internet hostility.

Some folks just get off on tearing other people down.

I love those houses though, and good on ya for doing something!

[Gato Moteado]

102. i've dished it out enough in DU......

....so, i can take it.

besides, i think the nay-sayers are coming around.

[NC_Nurse]

61. I am considering Costa Rica for me expat move. My husband and I are

Planning to start visiting places with the intention of scoping out places to semi-retire. Sadly, my Spanish is rudimentary at best. If we get it together to come down, can we come visit you and ask you our dumb questions? :-)

[Gato Moteado]

67. ask away!

always happy to help if i can.

let me know when you're coming.

[NC_Nurse]

80. Great! I'll let you know. At the moment I'm on a travel nursing contract until

April. After that, back to the east coast to take care of some things. Then, who knows?

I wonder if it's possible for me to work there? We don't have tons of money stashed away so we have to work somewhere...

[Gato Moteado]

82. working here is tough without residency....

....unless you want to teach english.

[silverweb]

63. If you were in California, I'd be there tomorrow.

A long-time friend and I have this dream of a few acres on which we and a handful of like-minded friends/family members could build a few individual cottages and a community structure, tend our gardens and animals, and just live very simply.

We both still have to work, but as long as we have broadband access, we can work at home.

The only catch is that we both want to stay in California, where our kids are. Oh... and we have no money to buy or lease the land.

Minor details, of course, when it comes to dreaming. :D

[XemaSab]

65. Oops

Somehow I thought you were in California. :P

[Gato Moteado]

66. why not?

from here http://www.networkearth.org/naturalbuilding/cob.html:

comes this:
What about earthquakes?

No building system is earthquake-proof under every seismic condition, but a cob mansion in Nelson, New Zealand has survived, without a crack, two major earthquakes which destroyed the town around it. In South Yemen, in a fault zone, there are Medieval earthen houses 13 stories high. Since a cob building is one monolithic unit reinforced by straw, it has no weak straight-line mortar joints, making it stronger than brick or block. The carefully regulated geometry and scale of Oregon Cob buildings gives them high strength. This is achieved by building mostly curved walls, by tapering and buttressing them, by adjusting wall thickness and material mix, and by keeping roof spans short.

and did you ever see this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJk_AFY4sgE

they did a study in canada about cob and earthquakes....you'll see it about half way thru the video. very interesting. they had to simulate an earthquake about 3X stronger than normally seen in canada to cause major destruction to the house and even then it didn't collapse.

[Gato Moteado]

101. nah....you knew i was in costa rica......

by the way, my S.O. saw one of these the other day on one of our properties:



that's a female in the photo.....she saw a male.

[MattBaggins]

68. It's actually really hard work.

[Gato Moteado]

69. no doubt

i'll probably rent or buy a cement mixer to mix the cob.

i'll also enlist local labor to help out.

[Matariki]

70. How would that hold up in a damp climate like the PNW?

We have to constantly battle mold here as it is. Wondering how clay and straw would hold up in our climate.

[Matariki]

72. Ah, found the answer to my own question, regarding wet climates.

http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_handsculpted_house:paperback/introduction

s Cob Durable? What about in Rainy Places?

In England there are tens of thousands of comfortable cob homes, many of which have been used for more than five centuries. Yemen's medieval 10-story skyscrapers are part cob, as is Taos Pueblo, continuously inhabited for 900 years. A large part of both the Great Pyramid and the Great Wall of China are earth, and the oldest known human dwellings (earthen, of course) in Jericho have survived 9,000 years. So your cob house should easily outlast neighboring studframes, designed for only 50 years' service.

Like any other kind of structure, cob buildings need good roofs and adequate foundations to protect them from water damage. Traditionally, cob walls are protected from driven rain with a lime plaster or stucco, though in protected places in England, unplastered walls have stood for centuries.



Aren't Cob Houses Cold and Damp Inside?

Winter visitors to our cob buildings in the Oregon rain forest often comment on how warm and dry they feel. Cob walls 1 to 2 feet thick provide immense thermal mass and adequate insulation, ideal for passive solar construction. Cob structures require little additional heating in winter and remain cool and comfortable on hot summer days. As it is fireproof, cob can be used for building ovens, stoves, and chimneys, and is ideal for completely unburnable houses in forest fire areas. One of our favorite designs is a cob bench or bed heated by the flue of a wood-burning stove.

[Gato Moteado]

76. oregon is the fertile crescent of modern cob...

...a lot of existing structures in oregon and washington....in fact there are a couple centers for learning cob based in oregon.

[Matariki]

71. Now, this was my dream for my PNW home...

http://www.yurtworks.com/home/mnd/index.html

[arikara]

73. We helped make an oven out of cob once

Its slowly catching on around here, there are a few houses and lots of outdoor ovens around. It is very labour intensive but people love to do it and its not hard to get a work party together. We have a rainy climate but as long as the cob is protected from the direct rainfall itself, it seems to stand up very well.

[Paulie]

75. Another site to check out is permies.com

[Gato Moteado]

77. definitely.

nt

[FedUpWithIt All]

87. We start our Strawbale Cob hybrid home in a couple of months.

Here is a place for you to list your own workshop. Many people just advertise their plans and receive more offers of help than they can handle. I know Cob Cottage, Natural Homes and i believe, House Alive offer workshops and have applications for hosting.

http://housealive.org/

http://www.cobcottage.com/workshops

http://naturalhomes.org/learning-cob.htm

I have wanted to build a cob home for over 20 years, since i took a trip to a little town in France called Leogats when i was 17. There, i stayed in a 350 yr old Cob home for three weeks. I fell in love with the place and the home. I have been dreaming and working toward building my own Cob home ever since.

Along the way my Cob plans have changed a little. We began leaning more about the thermal properties of Straw bale and fell in love with it's similar lines. Our path to our own 50 acres has been very resource and time consuming. Essentially, Cob takes a *very* long time and we need to move to the land asap. We currently live on the income from my husband's mechanics job and child support i receive from my ex. Moving sooner will cut out the current housing expense and allow us to put more of this limited income onto the land payment and the building up of our small home. We have been extremely fortunate that 100% of our extended family and friends have been completely supportive.

A little over a year ago we sold a large portion of our belongings and put a down payment on a 10 yr loan for a 50 acre property and moved our 6 person family into an inexpensive 2 bedroom apartment near the land. We have started keeping chickens, rabbits and goats. We've taken classes on small ruminant care and beekeeping. We have been biding our time by shopping for functional antiques, building up a library, creating an informational card file using the internet for research and doing small projects like building a smaller coop and incubator.

So, next week we will, **finally**, be having an old logging road cut into a more suitable driveway. After this, our 32 ft, old FEMA, travel trailer will be placed in a semi permanent spot near our building site, we will begin construction on our pallet shed/barn/coop and our kitchen garden rotational plots, setting up an area for two Scottish Highland heifers and setting up a cistern. In the spring, we, and the animals, will move to the land. We will begin digging insulated shallow footers and filling earthbags for the foundation, while the animals begin eating brush and bugs.

Hopefully, by spring's end we will have completed the first phase of our hybrid home. The first part will be a detached Kitchen which we will use as a cabin for a year+. The kitchen will be all straw bale and will use passive solar and wood for cooking and water and atmospheric heating. It will be attached to the main, straw bale and Cob, permanent home by a hallway to limit overheating the main house. The main home, which may take a couple of years, will have south facing wall using Cob for it's thermal mass and a rear wall using low windowed straw bale. The kitchen, it's hallway and the eventual main house will form a small courtyard.

We are aware that this could all go wrong but we are grateful for every moment we are able to experience. Even the kids have been supportive, excited and involved. This experience has certainly changed us for the better and even in the tough moments, we are fully able to count our many blessings.

[deaniac21]

91. No, just the salad.