[Cob] Cob/Bale in Kansas

[Karen Mason]

Hi Cob Community:

After reading Ben's e:mail inquiry about cob/bale I decided it's time to let all of you know that for the past 6 months Cob has been happening in Kansas. We are Karen and Pat, and we live in south-central Kansas. In the part of the county where we live, fortunately for us, there are no building codes. We have had carte blanche to build whatever we have wanted with no one checking up on our activities. We designed an approximately 750 oval foot home, half of which we built in the past 6 months. 

Initially we were going to do the north wall in cob/bale. As we started building, we wondered why we would just build the north wall in cob/bale when all the wind in Kansas is cold. In fact, the south wind can be colder than the north. So, we decided to build all the walls in cob/bale. And, we are really glad with our decision. We feel like the combination of the thermal mass of the cob, which varies form 8"-12" thick and the insulation of the strawbales will work great with the climate here in Kansas. And, it also cut down on our building time and allowed us to meet our winter deadline.

A few details on construction: We mortared the bales together with cob and reinforced the bales with rebar on the interior and exterior. We then joined the interior cob walls with cob packed on top of the bales up to the roof and embedded the cob in rebar that ran through the rafters. We are very pleased with how well this worked and time will tell how it is going to hold up. Right now it feels rock solid. We also built a rocket stove and bench. The roof is a live roof. 

For anyone interested, we have put together a photo album on photobucket that documents our building process. There are 3 albums on the site, two of which document our sustainable homestead project. We are off-grid and raise most of our own food. One is for years 2007/2008(when we started), one for 2009(which documents the building of our cob oven, and other projects), and one titled Cob House.  Here's the link: http://s490.photobucket.com/albums/rr265/maskaren/     Once on the site chose the album and then go to slideshow to see our project.

We have absolutely loved this process of building our own earth home with our bare feet and bare hands. Nothing has been more enjoyable than getting our feet and hands covered in cob. Our place feels so magical and peaceful. All of the hard work has been so rewarding. We love Cob!

Karen and Pat in Kansas
 		 	   		  
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