Cob: Difficult to build upon>>mall cob housing

[Taylor Publishing-DirtCheapBuilder]

- the fact that a cob house can be built upon, changed, adapted.

Chuckle...talk to Elishiva and Misha who built a cob house in N. CA,  
and assumed they could just "knock" out a wall whenever they wanted to 
add a room or door.

this is some info on their site:
http://www.northcoast.com/~tms/cobhouse.html

Elishiva said  the cured cob was so hard it took 3 long weeks with a 
pick ax (tough manual labor) to open a small window portal through the 
thick cob.  They assumed it would be easy too...we all keep trading this 
same information on how it can be added on to etc. which is TRUE,   but 
this was a real wake up call.  PLAN where you will want a future  
doorway,  or frame it in, and infill with light straw clay or 
something....I carefully observed what had to be done on  their  cob 
wall, and she was right, cob dries as hard rock.

Anyone else have an easier time of it? We need anecdotal evidence so the 
real work tally can be known.

Ms. Charmaine  Taylor/ Taylor Publishing
http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com    http://www.papercrete.com
PO Box 375, Cutten (Eureka) CA 95534 707-441-1632     tms at northcoast.com