Cob: RE: Cob and Labor (Day).

[John Schinnerer]

Aloha,

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Carter and Carol Cannon [mailto:cobcrew at sprynet.com]

>I would conclude that there really is no "labor issue" unless you expect to
>build a house quickly AND for nearly free.  There is an expectation issue!

This was actually the point I was hoping to make...people expect it to be
"easy" and "quick" because almost nobody in the first world actually builds
their own shelter, and therefore most have no idea of the actual amount of
labor (regardless of methods and materials) involved...expectations, as you
say!  

I was trying to point to the "hidden" and/or "taken for granted" labor
aspects of other building methods, which (for the basic structure) are much
more "up front" with cob (because you can't call the lumberyard and have
your stack of framing materials suddenly appear at your site...ya gotta dig
it, man... ;-).

It's great to have some actual "production" examples - thanks for that!
Most of my experience has been in workshop settings, where there are lots of
people learning and "efficiency" is low compared to a "production" job - but
they're having fun, and "efficiency" isn't everything unless one wants to
perpetuate shelter-as-profit-commodity over
shelter-as-community-opportunity.

I'll be doing some "production" cobbing at Breitenbush week after next - if
I feel like it I'll try and make some estimates of "how much gets done" each
day.  Then again, I might be having too much fun to do that... ;-)

John Schinnerer