Cob Re: what duckchow said

[M J Epko]

I wrote:
>even if it's only one passing phrase in one of the
>books that prevents a life-threatening, or just plain 
>annoying, situation. But then again, there didn't used 
>to be any books about it, and there's a heckuva lotta 
>really good old earthen structures in this world.)

Charmaine responded, and not argumentatively in any way:
>... people have always depended on
>themselves to build..and in just the last (few) hundred years 
>we have completely lost our 'builder's spine' and the courage 
>to do it ourselves( in 'advanced' societies).

And a hard loss that, too. In more agrarian/rural times in the short 
history of the USA the "builder's spine" was a neccesity, a fact of 
life... and really, it only lasted a few generations. Methods of how to 
build with the materials at hand were developed or adapted, learned and 
passed on from parent to child and neighbor to neighbor - the same as 
how to shoe a horse, milk a cow, plant a bean. At some point, either 
somebody stopped telling, or somebody stopped listening. I suspect the 
latter.

There is need for neophyte-builders to learn how *not* to get to know 
the roofs of their structures the hard-and-fast way (collapse), etc. 
This knowledge can come from books or from people - better it should 
come from people, but that's not always possible or affordable - or from 
experimenting. Experimenting is slow, particularly when a person *needs* 
shelter now.

Building a quick utilitarian shelter is painfully easy, and common sense 
can provide a plan from just about any material to achieve it. From 
there, it's all details... and that's where I'm talking about the value 
of books. An inexperienced person in a cold and wet climate can indeed 
build a mud house with great ease, but without a pool of information and 
experience from which to draw, the house *may* not last more than a very 
short time and could be awfully darned cold. But things like the 
longevity or "contemporary comfort" of the structure may or may not be a 
concern of the builder.

Anyway, that's where I see the value of books.

I was reading Roger Welch's book on soddies when I was at JoE's last 
week - great stuff. And every bit as easy to build catastrophically 
wrong as excellently right.

*

Speaking of codes and David Eisenberg - excitin' news is afoot, watch 
the strawbale list for the promised DEtour or two, words from The Man 
hisself...

Also, there was a meeting of a subcommittee of a committee of 
something-or-other at the Department Of Energy, organizing to discuss 
the thermal envelopes of buildings with regard to energy efficiency. A 
delegation was dispatched from the Colloquium. A cob guy from South 
Africa was among them, and asked one of the scientist-types what it 
would take to get a thermal test done on cob. The scientist-type said, 
"Send me a brick and I'll do the test." Sheesh, it was that easy. I'll 
get more info when I can, but probably John Schinnerer will have it 
before I do. I'm in the periphery, he's in the thick of it.

(Imagine Sun Ray in Washington at the DOE... now realize that it did 
indeed actually happen. Yikes!)

*

BTW, Charmaine, the megastack of your catalogs did arrive here at the 
Colloquium-E & I grabbed one from the pile. If you already sent one or 
more to TLS, I'll pass along any extras. Thanks.


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