[Cob] Engineered Cob House Plans

[Janet Standeford]

Hi Jill,

The little cottage page has an error.

I love what you guys are doing. I will take a copy of your email to the 
Building Dept to show them the possibility of them becoming the first 
Inspectors in Oregon to specialize in Natural Building. I hope you don't 
mind. If you have your Inspector's email address, that would be very 
helpful.

The more we can combine our resources, showing the desirability of cob 
building, the better off we all are. I will be posting all my costs and 
materials as well as pictures and the offer from my Civil Engineer of 
the house plans. I  will also post the Building Dept contact information 
so other Inspectors can communicate with them. What I have discovered is 
that they really want to be of service. They just don't have the code or 
experience to do it as willingly and freely as we would like.

I know we all would like to be as creative as we want and we are tired 
of the rules and regs that are slowly choking the life out of us and it 
would be life affirming to freestyle our homes but there are still an 
enormous amount of people who don't agree with us. Part of ensuring the 
growth and acceptance of cob building is to educate people. We can start 
that at a local level. Getting the Natural/Green Building Shows involved 
in all our permitted cob buildings will help spread that education. I've 
spoken with countless acquaintances that have watched those shows and 
they are excited about it.

One of the issues we need to overcome is* the fact *that nearly every 
homeowner is burdened until death with mortgages that are super 
inflated. What we are asking them to do is accept that their property 
values would *potentially *go down if we are allowed to build in their 
vicinity. Of course, their payments *will not go down*.

Of necessity, for the good of *all*, we must go about this as we are. 
Slowly. For we are not just battling Building Codes. However, if enough 
people lose their homes in a bad economy perhaps we can have growth 
spurts that will jump start our way of building. We must be prepared for 
this.

Maybe this generation will not see a major revolution in building but 
perhaps we can greatly influence the lives and building practices of the 
next generation and their future.

Just thinkin'