[Cob] new to cob

[Amanda Peck]

Both the Becky Bee and Ianto Evans (+ Smiley and Smith--not at all sure if 
you need Michael Smith's book by itself) books.  The Cob Cottage (Evans and 
somebody) booklet on rocket stoves.  Kiko Denzer's book on earth ovens.  
Maybe Becky Bee's book on the Best Hot Tub Ever.  It's a great idea to build 
something out of cob by yourself first.  Ovens are great.

Joseph Kennedy's (+ Michael Smith IIRC, and Catherine Wanek) anthology on 
natural building may give you an idea of some other things you need to 
consider.

I'm pretty high on Tony Wrench's book--"how to build a low-impact round 
house"

If you have a big local bookstore I'd look there first, then 
www.dirtcheapbuilder (she's a member of the list!) and finally the 500 pound 
silverback gorilla, Amazon (or Borders or Barnes and Noble--they may only be 
300 pound gorillas).

On-line, Gernot Minke has a (free .pdf file) booklet on earthen building for 
seismic regions, valuable for reasons other than seismic--e.g., what makes a 
wall strong, how to keep the hill from oozing down onto your foundation 
(happens to me here, used to in Honolulu--where the back steps disappeared 
every couple of months, steep gravelly mountainside there).  The australian 
permaculture group has a short video on swales in Jordan (Thank You Joe R 
Dupont for pointing this out this morning) that's worth thinking about--I 
did walk the dogs while it was downloading--both for irrigation and for 
KEEPING WATER AWAY FROM YOUR BUILDING.

Charmaine Taylor of dirtcheapbuilder.com has some excellent resources on 
that site--look for the papercrete pages.  And she now writes a column for 
her paper.

If you check the archives looking for picture pages, they will help too.  
Mark Piepkorn's site is gorgeous--for a couple of years he was able to just 
take pictures of people's buildings.

Evans is not bad on choosing land, if you're not already set that way.

Great idea to do a workshop or at least work on somebody's project.  I think 
the former really is preferred (they work better if you are there full-time, 
not commuting, and juggling all my animals is a serious hassle).  The price 
always seems horrible, but if you get an idea of what good mixtures feel 
like, how to organize the work, even something that will save you a month of 
floundering, they suddenly seem like a bargain.


.............
Tracy wrote:

Hi. We are a central Texas family interested in building a beautiful cob 
structure. We would like to purchase some reading material and would like to 
attend some workshops. Where is the best place to start?