Cob: Re: Interesting proposal

[drhelp]

This is Diana, in British Columbia. In Devon and Cornwall I saw a number of
lovely cob houses, barns, outbuildings that are hundreds of years old and
look as good as new. One elderly couple saw me looking and looking at their
house, which was built right at the streetside, and invited me in, once I'd
answered their queries about what fascinated me. The inside of the house was
charming in all ways, and this couple had lived in it almost 70 years. The
man's parents had lived in it as long before him. It had been in the family
some generations. Not a noticeable crack, and they seemed amused by my many
questions. I'd read about cob-built places quite a bit, but had no
experience with them, until that British Isles trip some years ago.

Since then I've seen many cob-built structures, all very fine and sturdy. As
well, I've made two trips throughout the three western provinces to witness
cob homes and other buildings and strawbale, cordwood, adobe, log, and
variations of the themes, as well as questioned the owners of all. Every
single family or person I visited raved or loved their dwellings/buildings,
and said that without exception the building of these had been a community
affair. Community in the sense of small groups of friends and volunteers had
helped build. In several cases, where the homes were large, building
contractors had supervised, and some crews had been hired on. In all the
cases of so-called alternative dwellings/ buildings, costs were
well-to-moderately below what one would expect from traditional building in
our provinces. For example, I was told the square foot costs ranged from
about $8.00/sq. ft. to $85.00/sq. foot. The latter was for a noble bungalow
of the style one sees in upscale, middle class new subdivisions here. The
former were humble dwellings and outbuildings, with all the perks of modern
living, including electricty (some off-grid), running water, heat, good
windows and ventilation and so on.

In cases where large houses and even more modest ones have been built within
acceptable time limits, each project had numbers of people working on them
to completion. I think that in all cases of the newer buildings, as opposed
to ones in England where I couldn't interview the original builders (I'm
old, but not old enough for that) the owners deliberately chose the
"alternative" building methods for personal/philisophical and often economic
reasons, and knew from the get-go that they would have a cooperative
building scheme with lots of helpers. So if one builds THAT into the plans,
and is able to meet that criterion, it becomes possible within a manageable
timeframe. Diana