FW: Re: [Cob] North Carolina Workshop costs

Wed Aug 11 18:25:26 CDT 2004

Of course Phil is right.

Sometimes these will be led by somebody very very good.  The time we were 
plastering a straw bale chapel, the man teaching us was--still is--just 
super.

And we did a good job the time that six of us got together to do my floor.  
I did feel a bit like it was a case of the blind leading the blind there, 
but, the job got done.
...........
Phil Hawn forgot to send this to everybody:

There are groups (like The North Carolina Natural Building Coalition) that 
offer free workshops nearly every weekend during the summer. Our experience 
may be limited but already this summer we have learned to raise a strawbale 
wall, make natural plasters, build a dry stack stone wall, mix cob and lay 
cordwood. We may even get to start a cob wall before the season is over and 
we already have one or two ovens planned for September. The learning 
opportunities are out there and in some case they are even free.

Phil Hawn, President
The North Carolina Natural Building Coalition
http://naturalbuilder.org
cob, strawbale, cordwood and other sustainable earthbuilding techniques

  --- On Wed 08/11, Amanda Peck < ap615 at hotmail.com > wrote:
From: Amanda Peck [mailto: ap615 at hotmail.com]
To: coblist at deatech.com
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:50:37 -0500
Subject: Re: [Cob] Workshop costs

It's perfectly true that those workshops sound horrendously expensive. 
 Especially if they are hundreds of miles away. Especially if, like me, 
you are burdened by lots of friendly animals. There have been a 
few people who thought that their house could be REALLY free if they 
held workshops for everything. The story in some magazine five years 
ago or so had the people who tried this really really disappointed. 
 These guys, whoever they were, were leading the workshops on their own 
 house. It strikes me that that might be a bad idea--one might be 
burdened by an inability to see the forest for the trees. By the 
way, it looks as if most of the high-dollar workshop leaders require you 
to have gone to at least somebody's real workshop--not just helped a 
 neighbor stack bales--before they will come to the one that you are 
hosting. It makes sense to me. Give one a good sense of what kind of 
organization is required, what at least some of the potential problems 
are, how much you can expect to have done, etc. I'd want the 
workshop leader--whether I was hosting or just paying my money to go--to 
be someone who came with pretty good credentials. Not necessarily a 
(THE?) book, but it would be nice to see a building, at least pictures, 
 talk to someone who had been at a previous workshop with or led by the 
 leader. But by going to workshops you are looking for experience 
for yourself. And inspiration, and a support group, and how to avoid 
expensive mistakes, all stuff that will cut down or eliminate your 
hiring people to do the work, or at minimum give you the ability to 
oversee the people you do have to hire. The experienced log cabin guy 
who worked for me last year charged $10 an hour if the job came with a 
place to stay. He said it would be $18 or more if he had had to rent 
something. Probably more than that if he'd hired a helper, not 
including the price of the helper. So a full weeks worth of just 
him--he alternated between staying at my treehouse (he built it) and his 
brother's house up the road--ran $400 (for better or worse he usually 
 didn't work full time). This is in an area where part-time for 6-8 
bucks an hour is considered good money. Running the numbers this 
way makes the costs of the workshops sound a lot more 
reasonable. _________________________________________________________________ Check 
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