Cob house construction techniques pdf

Consequently, the carbon footprint of a cob house is exceptionally low. The first thing i discovered was that mud is one thing in one place and a different thing in another. Braidotti explores the figurations of the body, technology, and the posthuman body in order to. However, to provide this efficient wood house, good construction details are important as well as the selection of mate rials for each specific use. Alan stokes bsc hons frics fbeng mifiree building control manager. Too much exposure is best avoided by building roof overhangs and gutters to protect the walls and constructing a high impervious foundation. Cob, also known as cobb, is a building material that comprises subsoil, straw or another fibrous organic material, water, and occasionally lime. The construction administrative code set forth in bmc 17. Questions and answers about cob cob cottage company. More subject to cracking than other earth building techniques. Most people thinking of cob building for the first time will be selfbuilders, but it is possible to use the services of professional cob builders. It is one of many methods for building with raw earth.

Theres such simplicity and beauty to the process that i find deeply inspiring. Department of civil engineering and mechanical engineering of. Department of civil engineering and mechanical engineering. In the process of drying cob gains compressive strength, while tensional strength is acquired. The bellingham city council has adopted the building and construction codes listed below. Jan 27, 2014 in the article cob building, ancient and modern, from the book the art of natural building new society publishers, 2015, michael g. Rammed earth or beaten earth is a fairly simplistic building technique but it can produce some of the grandest earthen buildings. Mother earth news explains that cob building gets its name from the old. Jul, 2020 the building materials needed for cob homes lack both pollutants and environmentally unfriendly production techniques. Oct 26, 2020 hildes cob house built in 1999 during a 3 week workshop led by ianto evans and elke cole. Here are 9 tips for getting cob house building code approval. When building a wall, the cob mix is typically layered upon a plinth, while the builder masters the balance between the fluidity of the material and its drying speed, ensuring the stability of the layers as the construction proceeds.

Offering relatively good levels of thermal comfort with a high level of thermal mass and humidity exchange. Earth based constructions techniques commonly used in the past, like adobe and wattleanddaub, have increasingly been replaced by buildings using more processed materials. Cobi is the manufacturer of quality building blocks sets in a variety of themes, from the historically accurate small army military replicas to pop culture, video game and automotive licensed products. Cob is one of the simplest and least expensive building techniques available, though it is typically very laborintensive.

Dec 02, 2018 a cob house is natural building material that has lots of beneficial properties that lend itself to a very comfortable home. Here are some of the different styles and systems for building a cob or a hybrid cob home. Because most mud building uses the same essential materials a mixture of clay, straw and sand the names are sometimes used a little loosely, which can lead to right muddy mess of howto. Cob building began use in england prior to the th century, and fell out of favor after world war i, although it is seeing a resurgence today. Three essentials to be considered in building a satis factory house are. As a cheaper way to go with your architect and engineer, have them use the proposed cob construction appendix available to all on the cri website. Smith has a background in environmental engineering, ecology, and sustainable resource management. The roof was put on that fall and the following spring the interior finishing was completed by tracy, elke and patrick.

Cob building systems foundations and walls this cob house. The ingredients are mixed by hand or feet and lumps of mixed earth are used to sculpt the house. To build a cob house you will essentially need three main components. People often ask me which i think is better, or greener.

An example of a neglected rawearth cob building in macerata italy. Building with cob is a sensory and aesthetic experience like sculpting adobe cob water proof cob is very resistant to weathering and can withstand long periods of rain without weakening. The wood fired earth ovensaka cob ovens are easy to build, and can give 12 hours of cooking after each firing, to. See more ideas about cob house, earth homes, earthship. Cob has higher tensile strength than other types of earth construction, which in general is weak in tension. Because benches and playgrounds are nonstructural it is a norisk experience to learn cob building techniques. I learned how to build with cob through practice and playing. Cob is a very old method of building with earth and straw or other fibers. Engineering properties of cob as a building material. So in the heat of summer, the walls keep things cooler. The common practice wall represents current building methods that can be found in the field. What we do and why we are doing it cob cottage company. Cob builders spend less of their lives working to pay for all of the above, and more time living. With the thick walls of the cob house, you have a lot of thermal regulation happening.

The will of reducing environmental and social impact of building. Note heated cob bench, massive cob walls, window seat, glasswall to south and east. As other earth construction techniques, cob encountered a renewed 34. Cob building lends itself to incorporating salvaged and eclectic building materials.

Cob building techniques at building diy advice and tips. Building a modern cob house learn stepbystep youtube. This material is a very durable form of earth construction. There is evidence of cob being used for building construction purposes in prehistoric times in various parts of the world and it was used for centuries in the. Building with cob is a powerful political action, greatly reducing the need for the mortgage systems, lumber and construction industries, and petrochemical companies. Cob building usf scholar commons university of south florida. A typical homestead is seen to either take the form of clustered living spaces centered on an impluvium, or be a loose aggregation of discrete units essentially unified by sociocultural exchanges. First, we had to clear the debris where the home would be built. A bit of study about the right mixture of clay, sand and stray depending on the temperature regulation requirements, a mud house can be erected. Cob is an earth based building technique that may be an alternative for the construction of new homes in developing countries. Mar 29, 2018 building a cob house is easy when compared to other building techniques as it requires very basic construction knowledge.

Cob homes stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Cordwood masonry can be combined with other methods e. A case study of cob earth based building technique in. Hildes project was the first cob fully permitted as a house in canada. I plan to put a roof over the cob oven i am building, but was wondering if lime plaster or boiled linseed oil is preferable in a climate with hard freezes and at times drifting snow. Cobi building blocks cobi construction blocks cobi. Feb 3, 2015 a profile of a typical cob and thatch building, illustrating wall details. Smith explains that in 18th century england and wales, many cob cottages were built by poor tenant farmers and laborers who often worked cooperatively. Practitioners may well employ other earth building techniques in the repair of existing cob buildings, including earth blocks, shuttered cob and rammed earth.

I am building with cob for the first time in northern new york state. Cob building is easy to learn, requires no special equipment, and uses sustainable materials. Cordwood construction is a term used for a natural building method in which cordwood or short lengths of pieces of debarked tree are laid up crosswise with masonry or cob mixtures to build a wall. Cob building is labourintensive and seasonallydependent aprnov for the cob part of the build, so start with a small design that can be added to at a later date. It is quite similar to adobe in that the basic mix of clay and sand is the same, but it usually has a higher percentage of long straw fibers mixed in.

Cob is much easier to shape and sculpt then other materials. How to build a cob house with cob construction diy natural. In the cold of winter, the walls can carry heat late into the nights. Jul 11, 2020 cordwood building is an old construction technique that is gaining popularity among those who decide to live off the grid. While initially only well known in poland and most of europe, cobi has exploded in popularity in north america recently due to its ever growing.

An often overlooked possibility is using earthen building methods to renovate existing homes on a shoestring budget, transforming rundown houses into earthen. It was discovered that the most popular building technique is cob construction, with floorplans invariably rectilinear. Pdf cob, a vernacular earth construction process in the context of. Cob building dates back hundreds of years ago, and cob houses built over 500 years ago in europe are still inhabited to this day.

It is important to provide a wider public of landuse decisionmakers, architects and engineers, entrepreneurs and builders, with the. But it is the fact that unbaked mud is still the most viable building material for one third of. The contents of subsoil naturally vary, and if it does not contain the right mixture it can be modified with sand or clay. I believe there is going to be a huge change in the way we build our. Cob is fireproof, resistant to seismic activity, and uses lowcost materials, although it is very labour intensive. Cob homes cob is the product of earth mixed with straw, sand, and water. There are no official cob house building codes that have been created, but these can help.

Cob is an earthen building material that is made of clay, sand, straw, and water. Nov 16, 2020 cob building designing buildings wiki share your construction industry knowledge. Describes the use of cob, which is a mixture of sand, clay and straw. Cob, cobb or clom in wales is a natural building material made from subsoil, water, fibrous organic material typically straw, and sometimes lime.

Get my 16 hour premium video course on earthen building and construction join the online cob building academy. In early 1999, a young woman from florida happened across an article online about the recent revival of an ancient british method for sculpting dirt houses. Cob may have evolved from earlier techniques like wattleanddaub, where mud is plastered over a framework of woven branches. Cob structures can be used as homes, chicken coops, barns, and even smaller ones for ovens. May 19, 2016 three popular mud and strawbased natural building techniques are cob, straw bale and earthbag.

The materials used in these repair techniques possess similar properties to those of cob as described in this document. Cob is a natural building material created from clay, sand, and. Free book teaches how to build a cob house a magical life. Using the ancient clay building technique of the spanish and igorots we can make cob mortar. Adoption and amendments to the codes are located in the bellingham municipal code bmc chapter 17. Mud building has developed over thousands of years, and there are a variety of wonderful techniques. Click here to learn more about cob building techniques. Smith, and linda smiley, the handsculpted house25 i have to admit that i am a natural building novice. Mud architecture construction details and techniques the thing that hit me in the eye, right from the beginning, was that an enormous amount of use was made of mud. The process of ecobrick building is easy, inexpensive and fun.

This will give you more confidence with the material, and allow you to learn from your mistakes before moving on to a larger structure. Mud architecture construction details and techniques. Moreover, there is a strong need to assess earthen building mechanical properties in order to guarantee an adequate structural safety, especially for some local earthen building techniques such as cob, that has been studied less than, for example, adobe. Bee allows the 183 page pdf version of the book to be shared for free, writing. I learned so much about building with earth and other readily available materials. In 2005 cobtun house a four bedroom cob house built in 2001 in worcestershire won the royal institute of british architects sustainable building of the year award and was later sold in 2007 for 750,000 gbp. Building with cob may be fairly labor intensive, but the rewards can be countless. It surpasses related techniques such as adobe, rammed. Cob is one of many methods for building with raw earth, the worlds commonest construction material. Pdf raw earth is a construction material unknown to most people. This tradition is predominantly represented in britain by cob, the west. Even elementary students can do the work using local organic resources. Cob building is usually best served by building in the round, and it can be sculpted into all sorts of freeform curves and shapes, giving a lovely, organic shape.

Cob house construction is an ancient building technique using lumps of earth mixed with sand, straw, and water. A stepby stepguide24 the only proven way to learn about cob building is to try it. Cordwood houses started appearing in wisconsin with the coming of the first settlers. Mixing and building with cob is very simple and easy to work with. This twostory mushroomshaped cob house built in 1999 on mayne island, british.

Bryce from dreamweavers collective explains the benefits and challenges of building with cob. Please visit the cob research institutes website for the latest information on building a permitted cob building as well as references to building professionals that can help you. Few, if any, materials can compete with wood framing in the construction of houses. The cordwood, thus, becomes infill for the walls, usually between posts in a timber frame structure. Additionally, healthy air quality is naturally maintained because the structure breathes via its tiny pores. A cob house is natural building material that has lots of beneficial properties that lend itself to a very comfortable home. It surpasses related techniques such as adobe, rammed earth and compressed earth bricks both in ease of construction and freedom of design. It is quite similar to adobe in that the basic mix of clay and sand is the same, but it. Cob is only one of many methods for building with raw earth, the worlds commonest construction material. We are the authors of the handsculpted house published by chelsea green with 20,000 in print, the most comprehensive book available on cob construction, also the cobbers companion, rocket mass heaters and earth. Making homes with natural materials gathered gently from the earth.