Cob Codes

[Jeanne Leimkuhler]

Hello Everyone, This is my first posting to the list, in fact the first
posting in my life, although I have been reading avidly for the past 6
months or so. This list is invaluable.
My husband, and I are building a small cob building in Bloomington, Indiana
as a practice project before building our own home. We do not yet have the
land that we wish to live and build on in the future, so we talked some
friends into letting us practice on theirs.
What we are building is a 200 sq. ft, one room guesthouse with cob
fireplace and earth floor. There will be electricity, but no plumbing. The
foundation is a gravel trench with 4" concrete cap. The metal roof will be
additionally supported by a post at either end and a curved ridge beam, all
from found trees on the property. The design was greatly inspired by Gayle
Borst's design for the Rainbow Ridge house in Austin, Texas.
The point that I wanted to make is that although we are building the first
cob structure in our county, and as far as we know in the state, we have
had very little resistance in getting a permit. The structure was
originally classified as a residence, but they were giving us some trouble
about the earthen floor. They wanted engineers drawings on this, which we
doubted exist. So we reclassified it as an accessory building and that
solved the problem. I realize that this is not an option for people
building a full blown home, but we figured that if we could get this
permitted it would make things easier for the next project, which might be
a home.
The most work that we had to do was drawing up the plans and working out
the math on a round ridge beam, but with that done we are permitted.
Granted, there were sceptics down there but Joe found the inspectors that
were open and curious and asked for them when he went in. Showing them
sections from The Cobbers' Companion was very helpful. Now they all want to
come out and inspect.
So the trench has been dug and inspected and we are on our way. It is hard
for me to believe that we would have less conservative inspectors in
Indiana than where most of you are building, but then again maybe we got
lucky here.

Happy cobbin'
Jeanne Leimkuhler and Joe Davis