[Cob] cobbale

[JUDITH WILLIAMS]

I think I may have missed some of the discussion of cobbale. I don't 
necissarily want to rush the building of my house but if I could shave some 
time off by using bales on the north side I would like to try it. I've been 
interested in straw bale construction since I first saw an article about it 
in the Santa Fe paper about 12 years ago. But after I learned about cob it 
seemed so much more doable for me working alone most of the time. So my 
question is: if you use bales as the middle of your cob sandwich do you 
still have to do all the extra work like pinning the bales and using a bond 
beam etc? That just seemed like too much engineering to me. I'm thinking of 
the video (the name escapes me now but it's the one that just came out). 
I've had help this week so am almost done with my trench for footings. I 
think I'll have to take a day off tomorrow. My guest is hobbling around and 
has moved his departure date up a couple of days.