[Cob] Roofing material?

[Amanda Peck]

Don't have my copy of the book handy, but there is Ondura.  You can sort of 
see it in this picture:

http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0RQCBAj8UFr!jxiVn5BUfe4dqdfQ6ynOAW4gnJ7Ee67a0YFWS3Kqtakt7rSgO7CfvdVezhbzDfXZj*0lHfiG9Obvcy*2dUSUrW0gwsXxPhEY/roof%20detail.jpg?dc=4675415307911910516

It has a very mixed reputation--Mark has pictures of a roof that the owner 
loves--other people hate it.  It is a lightweight, asphalt-infused paper 
product.  I used it on my treehouse because it was many many feet up a steep 
and right rough hill, battery operated or hand tools only.  I'd do that 
again, but i'd hate to have to use it for potable water:

a) it's not slick so it's going to catch odds and ends of things more easily 
than they do with metal.

b) I gather it smells of asphalt in hot weather for the first summer at 
least--we had it just on purlins, no sheathing.

That said, there is a rain barrel under the downspout of that roof.

The treehouse roof in the picture (because only the front supports are in 
trees--the back are on posts--the roof needs to float--which is what the 
picture was intended to show.

Here's their web site (it sells at the big box stores--not always the best 
place to buy large sheets of roofing, by the way, because they just have the 
stuff sitting out on the floor) :

http://www.ondura.com/

....................
Carmen wrote (snipped)

If anyone else has "The Hand Sculpted House" (Evans, Smith, Smiley), would 
you mind taking a look at something? On the second page of the full-colored 
photo pages, there is a photo of the Permaculture Institute of Northern 
California's office, and it says it was built by Penny Livingston, James 
Stark, and the Cob Cottage Company. Does anyone know what that roof is made 
of? At first glance while flipping through I thought it was a steel roof, 
but it looks kind of dull and has none of the ridges I'm used to seeing in 
any steel roofs I've come across.