Cob sledgehammers and heat retention

[Patrick Newberry]

> 	Oh, I can salvage this! Find all the info you can about the upcoming
> "International Building Codes" slated for complete rollout in 2000. The
> three big U.S. Code organizations are putting out their final updates, and
> will afterward be closing shop and supporting the new one. Municipalities
> will be free, as they always have been, to adopt whatever they want - but
> since there's only going to be one major code being regularly updated, you
> can guess what's going to happen. Find out what the restrictions and
> allowances being put forth in this new code are. Might be cob-friendly,
> might not be. But you can bet that they haven't asked the Cob Advisory
> Board for their input... maybe it's time to form a Cob Advisory Board.
> Anybody out there know anything about cob? I don't.
> 

They are in the process of adopting some building codes  here in 
Taylor county Georgia. I am going to see what influence I can manage 
to assert in terms of alternative building. Cob in particular.  I 
suppose that is a start.  How to have that some influence at a Higher 
level I'm not really sure. Write letters? 

Any ideas on how to help the cause of cob not be coded out of 
existence by well meaning do gooders whom what to protect us from 
ourselves?  

I did have some second thoughts about even presenting my case to the 
folks that are developing the building codes because it crossed my 
mind that hey I've already got a building permit and if I walk into a 
meeting and let them make them aware of my building with earth could 
then then (worst case situation) but in anti-cob laws that they might 
never have thought of had I not brought up the issue?

Well I guess truth and Knowledge are always correct so forward I go 
into the depths of county politics. Actually the  whole issue of 
codes came up here NOT because of folks building there own house but 
because some folks from North Carolina are going to build a hog 
(breeding) farm here and the anti-hog group could not stop them using 
local building codes.  

Pat 
Mauk, Georgia.