I recently had some great friends come out and give me a hand building on the cob cabin! Learn what cob is by clicking here. Cob is regenerative in so many ways, but one that stands out is the medium's ability to bring people together for the common good of providing shelter. Cob is fun - it's like dancing and playing with clay, cob is safe - zero harmful chemicals, you can get it all over yourself, and cob is simple - anyone can begin building with cob after just a quick demonstration!! Building with cob brings community members together - you get to know your friends and neighbors while putting a roof over your head. Forget hiring contractors - you have to hire a separate person or company for each part of your house and it costs tons of money - not to mention the lifetime of maintenance! Just think if all the houses in your neighborhood were built by the people that lived there. Think of the connections that would be made between neighbors. Homes would have so much more meaning and be more reflective of the individuals who built them and put their own little touches. Cob is hand sculpted so the possibilities are endless! Plus most materials for cob are very simple and can be sourced locally, this keeps the little money you have to spend in the local economy. Thanks to everyone who helped!
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We are very excited to announce construction started on our new Permasystems shop located in Ramona, CA (San Diego County). This is where we do everything, hand-make our water tanks and other products, build molds, design, create and make beautiful art! Our old shop was pretty small, quite leaky and exposed to the elements. The new space will be huge, allowing us to streamline much of our process to create even better quality and consistency in our products. Although we are big advocates for natural buildings, such as cob, we decided to use conventional wood framing to build the roof structure because of the shop's massive size. Then, instead of building conventional walls out of wood we will build living walls out of vines, thus saving money, allowing for air flow and being beautiful.
We finally begun mixing cob and building walls. We also added a storage tent which we bought for $10, earthworks, the beginning of a hugel bed (more on hugel beds in a future post), stem walls (see previous post to learn more), trees, and tall vertical posts to string wire between for plants to grow above the house. We are really hoping to get the roof on before the rainy season hits. That way, with a roof on, we would still be able to work on building cob walls without the rain hitting them directly which is bad. And hopefully there would be time in between storms for the cob to dry out. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Soil is one of the most neglected elements on this planet. We strip it, compact it, pave over it, we throw chemical fertilizers in it, we bury our trash in it, etc. - all without realizing the incredible biological richness that takes place in healthy soil, such as in an old growth forest. Nature is always working towards becoming an old growth forest in a process called succession. Succession happens when a habitat becomes disturbed, this could be from fire, moving soil around (such as building a house or starting a garden), cutting plants down, really any abrupt disturbance. Is is basically a drastic change in composition of the habitat. An old growth forest represents the most efficient form of nutrient exchange allowing plants and animals to prosper. So, say you clear an area for your new garden and all of a sudden weeds start popping up like, well, weeds. This is the first stage in succession with subsequent stages slowing developing larger and larger plants over time. Every time you cut your weeds down you start the succession process all over! So the best way to build healthy habitat and the most efficient conditions for plants and animals to live is to nudge nature along in the process of succession. This process starts with healthy soil. Soil is the foundation for all terrestrial life on earth and having soil rich in biological life, like a diverse array of beneficial bacteria and fungi, makes an incredible difference in how much water the soil can absorb and hold, and how much of the water and other nutrients the soil can make available to plants. Did you know that soil at almost any location on earth has enough nutrients to grow healthy plants??? The problem is that the vast majority of the time these nutrients are not in a form that is available to the plant, hence why people throw tons of chemical fertilizers on plants. It is the bacteria and fungi that transform nutrients so plants can suck them up! This Minisode shows the very beginning stage of earthworks. The goal of earthworks is to shape the soil in such a way that maximizes the infiltration of water but at the same time the soil holds the water like a sponge, allowing plants to utilize it over a longer period of time. Soil building takes time and planning, but it's not hard. We will go into more detail about soil building as we get to those parts in the cob cabin building process. This Minisode shows the completed rubble trench as well as a separate drainage system to ensure water does not get into the cob cabin no matter how epic the downpour. An additional benefit of a properly built rubble trench relates to earthquakes. This house, as other structures that use a rubble trench, will not be attached or fastened to the earth in any way. There is no need for this as the house is going to weigh so incredibly much that there is zero chance it could ever be blown over or away. In the event of a significant earthquake, this "floating" action of the house on top of the rocks in the rubble trench allows the house to move as a whole, even if just a tiny bit, thus reducing the amount of stress on the structure and significantly reducing the chance for type of cracks or damage to develop. The rubble trench is lined with landscaping cloth to ensure dirt does not move into the cracks of the rocks and inhibit water flow. Landscaping cloth is designed so water can still flow through it. I used a 2 inch PVC pipe for my drainage. This will be plenty to move water out and away from the structure. The rubble trench is critical for a low maintenance and long-lasting cob house. When built properly, the rubble trench provides both a solid foundation for the walls as well as a place for any water near the house to be conveyed away as quickly as possible before it gets to the cob. Although water does not necessarily hurt cob, if saturated enough it does make the cob soft and it can wash away or lose shape. Basically it would turn into a sticky mess until it could dry out again, not something you want inside your house.
Here is our first Minisode (mini-episode) that goes through the cabin's layout and describes the main elements such windows, doors, walls and roof. The cabin will be approximately 10 x 16 feet or 160 square feet. As of June 24, 2015, we started construction on our cob cabin located in the back country of San Diego County. This house will serve as a demonstration and education site for learning about natural building, permaculture, rainwater harvesting, as well food and soil systems. The cabin will primarily be made of cob, a simple mixture of clay, sand and straw - that's it! Cob has been used for thousands of years to build all kinds of structures. Natural building materials, are cheap, easy, beautiful, healthy and long lasting. Need we say more???
The house is situated such that 2 of the cabin walls will be composed primarily of existing granite boulders (see photo). The rest of the walls will be made of cob and 2 rainwater harvesting tanks will be integrated into the actual walls. These tanks will be made of ferrocement (such as the tanks on my website). The rest of the cabin will use recycled materials such as doors and windows. The roof will be made of ferrocement. I will explain these different methods later as I get closer to actually working with and constructing them. |
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