FW: Cob: experience is overrated -- an eight-year-old with a cookbook could do this stuff!

[Donna Strow]

-----Original Message-----
From: Donna Strow [mailto:dstrow at bcpl.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 9:06 PM
To: name witheld, because this person mailed me personally
Subject: RE: Cob: experience is overrated -- an eight-year-old with a
cookbook could do this stuff!





a) I'd guess you learned more from having an experienced person around than
you thought you did.

I'll buy that provisionally.  I certainly can't argue from the standpoint of
knowing how far off my own perceptions might be.

b) might be able to set it up so that the "free" people could NOT go home
with class notes, strictly on-the-job.  Other days as well.

I don't really want to do that.  It misses the mark somehow.  It would be
neat if they all raised their own barns.  We're trying to spread the
technology.  Charging people is a means to ensure that we can afford the
time to spread it.

c) after you write your--well-received--book you MIGHT be able to earn a
living doing workshops.

Dang.  The folks who hosted the workshop I went to had a newsletter and a
virtual bookstore but to my knowledge had written no book.  They do,
however, make a business of instructing students, including scouts.

d) there's a fair amount of resentment for the very expensive workshops, for
the people who seem to by trying to build their house for free by charging
people lots for the workshop, then adding on fees for food and minimal
camping--no showers for instance--leads to resentment.

Thanks for the warning.  I don't resent my mentors, though.  I just think
they don't realize how much can be passed on verbally versus how little is
learned in the field.

e) I'd also guess that the cob part is the least knowledge-intensive part of
the building process.  Insulating foundations, wiring, planning for and
installing plumbing, roofing considerations, how to make doors, get windows
in so they do everything one wants them to do (and so on) might well be
parts that take the most experience/knowledge.

I'm not convinced here.  We used the thermal ballast of earth *instead* of
insulation, except where light straw clay was used expressly for insulation.
For our host's community, wiring seems to consist of a bare-bones "run a
wire out there" approach.  Plumbing, too -- run a pipe, but if you want
th'water hot, add a flash heater (and who n'a'heck needs more than one
sink?)  Roofing was handled almost entirely in the classroom, although one
roof that rose in the field was apparently done in a creative,
seat-of-the-pants vein... I don't need to bore you with all this.  Bottom
line is, does it require knowledge? yes; experience? no.  One more thing:
It requires creativity.  What do you need in a roof?  ... What if you could
waterproof papier mache?  Your technique doesn't have to resemble anyone
else's...

I think I just realized something.   You can review the strengths and
properties of materials in a classroom setting, but, in the field, all you
learn is this technique and that technique.  Chalk another one up for the
classroom.