Cob: Re: Re: Time and cost?

[Patricia Kerns]

Several years ago, I talked myself out of building with cob in favor of SB
for this very reason.  (Note: to the person who said SB is too grid-like, I
easily built a round structure with SBs, very organic looking - see it at
http://twistedroad.com).  I've been very happy with my house, but can't say
I'm 100% sure I'm glad I went with the SBs.  SB works wonderfully in my
desert climate, but I had to transport the bales in from miles away.
Conversely, I have dirt galore laying all over my own property.  So my
costs, and the costs you can't really count (the costs of being less
sustainable) were a lot higher for the SB.  But the walls went up in a
matter of days, which would have been months for cob.  I think this is a
pretty important factor at least for your initial shelter, if you do what I
did and live in a temp shelter while building.  In the end, my compromise
was to build the central post of the circular structure and all the built-in
furniture out of cob - so I got to have my fun in the mud and get the
building up relatively quickly in the process.

We have since built two small structures with adobes.  These go up pretty
fast compared to cob, but in one case we had adobe makers come out and make
the adobes for us in advance, in the other case we went out and bought them
on the local market.  If we had made all the adobes ourselves, the overall
time frame would have come closer to that for cob.

There are a number of other factors that are intangible.   First, earth
structures have a feel to them that you simply can't describe to other
people - you have to experience it for yourself.  Second, out here in adobe
country, when people are no longer using a structure they frequently
scavenge the roof materials to rebuild.  Then the adobe walls slowly melt
back into the ground over time.  I can't explain why this is so attractive,
its something else you have to see for yourself.  Third, we have a very
individualist culture in this country (not being judgemental - there are
good points to that and bad).  From my observations of a small Mexican town
across the border from me, the smart way to build with earth (adobe, in this
case) is to get all your neighbors to help you, and then you turn around and
help them when they need it.  This seems to give an incredible sense of
community, as well as being practical and allowing the earth structures to
go up very fast.  But we don't seem to have the cultural framework for
doing this here.  You just can't put numerical values on factors like this
when you're doing the time/cost analysis.

I guess there's no easy answer to your question.  You really have to look at
each situation individually (for instance, if I had found SBs here locally,
I would never have second guessed my decision for a moment).  Some people
can live in temporary shelters comfortably, and some can't.  Some of us are
rich in time and energy, some not as fortunate.  Some people, like the
people across the border from me, have no money
and are constrained to using what they find on their land - they don't have
the luxury of doing a balancing act between importing materials that go up
faster or using stuff available that goes slower.  In the end, everyone has
to answer your question individually for themselves, given their particular
circumstances.

Patricia




----- Original Message -----
From: "drhelp" <drhelp at shaw.ca>
To: "Carla Kennedy" <carlaevans at hotmail.com>; <coblist at deatech.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 7:36 PM
Subject: Cob: Re: Time and cost?


> From what I've seen, strawbale would move faster and allow you to
accomplish
> your goals within a more reasonable time frame than cob. Is that the
opinion
> of others on the list? Diana
>
>