Cob Building?

[wildethan]

I was surprised not to find one reference to cob on this forum. I guess its not too popular, yet. What are your thoughts on it? Has anyone built stoves, walls, even shelters with it? My main concern is to do with building codes and the other aspects of law that affect it.

Im going to a cob building workshop in September, and im so excited!


later

[StL.Ed]

Well, there have been a couple of discussions of cob building on HT but 'cob' is too short or too common to include in a search...

when I tried it, I get "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search : cob"

try searching on sand clay straw

Making Cob bricks
(among other results)

eta: I got 55 hits, but not all are cob-related

[45n5]

i built most of my house with earth bags covered in cob and then plastered with lime/sand mixture

if you want to take FOREVER to build a house then use cob or natural building, unless you have plenty of help it's super labor intensive, but it is fun and I could shoot a shotgun at the wall and probably wouldn't go through it (haven't tried it yet though)

there's really no need for a workshop, just grab some straw , clay dirt (dig down a little and take stuff under the topsoil), and sand then mix them together and then shape into anything you want, you are now a cobber play with the ratio's to see what works best for your unique dirt

[fishhead]

My relative has a cob covered house. I'm pretty sure the insulation is straw bales.

There are some commercial sized buildings in Pine River that are nearly solar heated here in MN.

[Pearl B]

Heres a neat vid & a page of links



https://www.google.com/#gs_rn=18&gs_...9b1c3496a021ed

When I looked into it seems Oregon was friendly to it as far as building codes & such. That was awhile ago though, not sure what it is today.

[Whistle Pig]

My fall project will be to buy this book and build one of these cob ovens. I will definitely take a lot of pics and be posting here when I am done.

http://amzn.to/117GZNj

[AngieM2]

and you may want to search in the Homestead Construction forum for more building posts, and ideas.

I think I've seen at least a thread or two about cob building in that forum.