Cob: Books...

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 jamie.ayres at m2.com wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Does anyone know of a decent book on how to build in cob... I'm after 
> building an old English-style cottage on two floors using stone, cob, 
> plaster and thatch but am having a hard time finding any decent 
> information on the building methods used. I want to do as much as possible 
> myself... right down to the thatch if that's feasible?
> 
> I've looked around but the majority of the books appear to be for the more 
> artistic buildings which, while looking beautiful, may not be practical 
> enough or subdued enough for the average English coundil to allow ;o) They 
> also might have difficulty with the rather high levels of rain in this 
> country!!!

The techniques for building with each material (stone, cob, plaster, thatch)
are the same whether you go with the traditional design or a more
"artistic" design.  You just need to learn each technique, then create a
design in the style you wish to build.

As far as levels of rain go, cob is a traditional building technique in
the UK, with many thousands of 100+ year old cob buildings still in use
today, so I wouldn't expect that to be much of an issue to the council.

> So, anyone know of any definitive 'How to Build Your Own Original English 
> Cottage' books? :o)

If you can't find one book doing the whole thing, you can always go with
separate books covering each subject.  Once you know the basic techniques,
any questions you may have left about the particulars of the traditional
English cob building could most likely be answered by going and taking a
look at some of the ones still standing, or asking on this list, I know
there are at least a couple list members who have worked on existing cob
structures in the UK.


Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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