Cob and building in Hawai'i

[John Schinnerer]

Aloha,

Back from my summer adventures, including an excellent cob-building workshop with the average normal-sized welshman himself...

As for Hawai'i, where I've also lived, and may again, allow me to blather:

Tim is right about the reactionary nature of building codes and building officials.  There is indeed very little earth, and what there is seems to me more valuable as a growing medium than a building medium, so cob is a poor (if not impossible) choice to build with.

However, here's some positive aspects:  there are places on the Big Island where land is cheap (due to various things, including the economy being poor) and it's possible to "get lost" as far as building inspectors go - if you keep a low profile and stay mellow.  Also, most anything with a HI-licensed architect or engineer's stamp will be approved (it's really about liability, not about codes - the county just needs to know who to blame), so if you can find an interested and sympathetic engineer or architect that's a possibility.  A friend of mine out there paid for his CA architect to get a HI license to get the stamp.

  Anecdote:  occasionally bureaucrats do stupid things and give you an easy out.  My former "boss" and his wife live in a lovely pole-framed home in upper Puna, built unpermitted and off-grid (and very nicely) by the previous owner.  The assessor was going through their area for the first time in years and made the mistake of being caught trespassing on their property - when he started complaining about the dwelling, they told him if he just went away they wouldn't charge him with trespassing.  They never heard from him again...

Building codes technically do not apply to Hawaiian Homelands, so if you have any connections to build on such property it should be possible to experiment with whatever you like. 
	
	>Most people in the rainy sections have their house up on posts. 

This is no longer allowed, actually - in HI county, building codes now require either slab-on-grade or full perimeter foundations (or an engineer's stamp...).  Older  houses are mostly post-on-pier, however.

	>There isn't any practical indigenous house building techniques in Hawai'i.
>The natives used
>hard-wood timber-framed huts thatched with thousands of leaves.  (Not
>really practical for 2 million people presently living there.)

That's a pretty sweeping statement...could be said about any indigenous technique, including of course cob.  I mean, mixing and building by human power?  Earth and straw?  Rocks?  Building by hand, without power tools?  C'mon, it's just not practical!  You'd have to make thousands of batches of cob...and there's only about 1.2 million people in Hawai'i, which happens to be about the same number as the best current estimate of how many Hawaiians were there before Capt. Cook showed up.  They managed to house themselves...

Actually, they thatched with bundled pili grass in some places.  Palm leaves are also good - a roof will last 10-15 years, and a new one can be cut and applied in a few days, by hand and machete only, and the old one is compostable...  Lots and lots and lots of lava rock for stone building techniques; ohia and guava wood for pole/timber framing; bamboo is a great idea but only this last year is any timber/structural bamboo getting planted, and only a small amount so far.

So, I see a lot of opportunity for natural building techniques in Hawai'i!  Cob, alas, isn't one of them, but I hope to be able to play with some ideas over there at some point - learn from the old locals and make the rest up or adapt from other tropical climes.  It may be a few years, but when it happens you're all invited to come visit and help out!

John Schinnerer  
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