Cob helpthenewbie / Cost of Cob buildings

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Andrew Felger wrote:

> hello
> My name is andy felger and i am hoping to construct a cob dwelling 
> anywhere from a tool shed to an organic agriculture resource center.  
[snip]
> bother with cob I need to find money to fund this project.  The 
[snip]

To build with cob, you do not necessarily need any money.  I am currently
putting up a small $ 0.00 per square foot cob building.  To do this I used
rock from the property for the foundation, soil from the building site for
the sand/clay mix (it is far from the ideal mix but it is useable), I
harvest grass from around the building site to use as the straw/fiber,
and the roof supports will be small trees or large branches from the
property which were blown down or are dead from other causes.  As a 
temporary measure in order to have a usable building this year, I am
going to use large glass bottles lying on their sides in a cob matrix to
make the windows, roof it with some scrap galvanized roofing, and hang my
cob mixing tarp across the entrance as a temporary door (OK, the tarp cost
me one or two dollars :-)  Next year I'm planning on redoing the roof with
thatch using plants from the property, and making the door from local
materials as well.  I'm still looking into whether or not I can make any
kind of window glass from the locally available minerals.

If you aren't limiting yourself to natural materials from the surrounding
land like I am for my final finished building, there are lots of
possibilities for using materials that people throw away or recycle.

If you want to build, all you really need is a place to put the building.


Shannon C. Dealy
dealy at deatech.com