Permasystems
  • About Us
  • Products
    • Water tanks >
      • Bushman
    • Planters
    • Homes and Roofs
  • Learn
    • Permaculture and Ecological Design
    • Catching Rainwater
    • FAQ
    • Active and Passive Rainwater Harvesting
  • Contact
  • Resources
  • Blog

Building a proper drainage

10/19/2015

6 Comments

 

Our government and individual citizens spend billions of dollars managing stormwater, and for good reason, water is powerful and can quickly cause serious property damage when cities and structures are not properly designed for big precipitation events. Luckily you have the power to mange stormwater on your own property. Following the design principles of permaculture you can be sure that stormwater doesn't cause any damage, and you can even use it to your advantage, by harvesting it.

In a future blog we will discuss the intricacies of designing stormwater management systems and how to harvest the water, but for this blog we want to show you just one design element that can be used in many situations.

This example will show the construction of a drainage system on the uphill side of the cob house we are currently constructing. We bury rocks that are wrapped inside a blanket of landscape cloth to facilitate drainage away from the house.

Pictures are in sequence, from beginning to end.

Picture
We built a small rock wall to serve as the support (stem wall) for our cob walls.
Picture
We lay down landscape cloth. The left side of the cloth is already set up as a drainage with pipe and rocks that leads away from the house.
Picture
Put about 6-8 inches of medium sized roundish rocks onto the middle of the cloth. Be careful rocks aren't sharp or they can puncture the cloth.
Picture
Wrap rocks like a burrito. Put a little soil on it to hold closed.
Picture
Cover up with soil. We used decomposed granite so when the ground is wet around the house it will be easy to walk on.
Picture
Pause to watch the sunset.
6 Comments

Brief history of cob and earthen construction

10/12/2015

0 Comments

 
So, cob is comprised of clay, sand and straw. That's it! These materials are ridiculously cheap and easy to come by almost anywhere on the planet. When properly mixed together they become incredibly strong, durable and beautiful - the perfect combination for a home. Cob ingredients are mixed in the proper ratio, then stacked in layers or sculpted by hand into the forms of walls, etc. Similarly, adobe bricks contain the same materials but they are dried in brick form, then used to make a structure.
Picture
The beginnings of a cob structure.
To the best of our current knowledge, cob and adobe type materials have been used for well over 10,000 years. Throughout time the art of natural building evolved into forms such as sod, rammed earth, straw-clay, wattle-and-daub, etc. Cob is an English term for mud building in which no forms nor wooden structures are used in the building process. In Old English "cob" means loaf. Similar forms of earthen building are found throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the US.
Picture
A cob home in the UK. Built in around the 1400s. Credit telegraph.co.uk
The Great Wall of China, built about 2,000 years ago, was mostly built of earthen bricks. Some of the massive pyramids in Egypt were built with earthen materials. These are some of the largest structures on earth.

It is estimated that close to 50% of people on this planet live in earthen buildings, like cob.
Picture
This image shows a city in Yemen made entirely of cob! It's huge and you can see buildings that are quite a few stories high. This really exemplifies cob's structural strength. The outside of the buildings are finished with a lime plaster.
0 Comments
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Cob
    Dryland
    Dryland Permaculture Plant Profile
    Ecology
    Ferrocement
    Food
    History
    News
    Permaculture
    Plants
    Rainwater Harvesting
    Ramona
    San Diego
    Soil
    Sustainable Design

    Archives

    January 2019
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Copyright Permasystems 2021
All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy

For the latest Perma-News visit us on Facebook!