Cob: the middle path

[John Schinnerer]

Aloha,

-----Original Message-----
From: SANCO Enterprises <Paul & Mary Salas>
>Most owner-builders are not experienced nor is their help if they are
fortunate
>enough to get it.  If you take the 25 days of full time work noted in your
>example it equates to 6 months of weekends.  Factor in a learning curve, no
>shows with the help, weather delays, it easily becomes a year, 18 months or
even
>2 years.  Your example illustrates that to build efficiently, it must be
worked
>full time and with experienced help.

Mike's example is three people...not a lot of "help," really.  One of the
beauties of cob is that one can become an "experienced" builder quite
quickly, at least as far as mixing and basic wall building is concerned.  To
learn to mix good cob from already selected materials takes most folks I've
seen try it maybe a day of training and practice.  To place and bond cob
well for basic wall structures, another two days of training and practice.
So "experienced" help needs three or four days to be full-time productive on
basic wall building.  One person with enough experience to supervise
material selection, foundation work, wall shape, mix consistency, window and
door and roof stuff, etc. completes the crew.  With such a short training
time, new help can be up to speed quickly (assuming it's available, of
course).  Plenty of folks put up roof or temporary roof first and build
regardless of weather (although drying is slower if it's damp).  

So I think there's a middle path here, folks...cob is labor-intensive, but
so are all other building methods if one looks back down all the source
streams - the labor is hidden, mechanized or taken for granted (or some
combination of all three). 

John Schinnerer