The year I built my first cob house
In our journey back home to Dancing Rabbit, April and I brainstormed ideas of how we could better button up the house for winter. At the time, the house was in the 30s, the rocket stove was clearly not going to keep us warm, and we didn’t have plans in place for a temporary stove yet. We expected to be cold. But we wanted to do what we could to make things more comfortable.
I have officially proclaimed the rocket stove “not working”. The stove simply does not draw on days without the right wind direction/intensity. It is unreliable. Even when the wind is right, the stove takes too long to heat up (even the barrel itself!) At times, it smokes into the house, which is added frustration.
Something is not right, unfortunately. The stove just does not keep the house warm. When April was home alone in December, she struggled to keep the indoor temperature in the 40s! That is not really livable.
After a week of travel in early January, I returned home to Dancing Rabbit… to cloudy, gray, cold Missouri. After days of thick clouds, the Common House’s power system was depleted and we went powerless (for the first time on this solar system) for five full days! Whoa.
Anyway, I have a fair amount of news to write about, but I have an inbox full of email to get to… It’s piled up after not being checked for two weeks…
But once I have a cool minute, there is some news regarding the rocket stove, winter conditions in the cob house, and future plans for home heat. Stay tuned! It’s been an interesting past couple of weeks…
This post might seem a little random, but I stumbled across this video and was floored by how complicated the manufacturing process for this simple soccer ball (sorry, football for the rest of the world) is. The amount of technology, machinery, computers, and undoubtedly, energy going on here is HUGE.
Remember that this is a mere football. A ball. Filled with air.
Then imagine how complex the manufacturing process is for other seemingly everyday objects.
I watched this and had to think about my house, made mostly out of sand and clay, which was built almost entirely by hand. The level of technology in my whole house seems to pale in comparison! (Ok, so there are some materials in the house [windows, the EPDM] that are probably quite complex to manufacture, but still…)
Oh industry…
Winter is the time for planning for the year ahead, and there’s a number of building-related projects in the works for 2010.
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Ever since I started building my house, I’ve thought about writing a book about the process of building. Now that my house is actually complete, I’m thinking more seriously about the prospect. The possibilities seem numerous, and the prospect is exciting. I’ve kept up this website and an actual written journal very obsessively so that I have clear documentation, and I also have plenty of photos of the entire construction, as well.
I got an email from DR friends Tony and Rachel who made this funky little snow mockup of my house. The first GOBCOBATRON snow home! (Note the little snow cob bed, too… or would that be an iqliq in this case?)
Just a random and slightly off-topic post here to say that I am now blogging at sustainablog, an environmental news blog that’s been around for a number of years now. I have been freelance blogging for the past three years for a number of websites, but hopefully this will work out to be a longer term gig than the rest! My first post is about the excellent book, Goat Song, and small-scale food production.
Expect a fair bit of natural building entries there as well!
(p.s. Happy winter solstice, by the way – if I were home, I’d like to measure how far the sun penetrates into my house through the south window on this day…!)
There are a few books that I referenced and relied on throughout the process of building my cob house. I’ve come up with a short list of books for aspiring cob builders to get inspired and get set on the path to actual construction of a small cob house similar to my own. Check them out!
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Just a little note that I finally wrote up a new post at The House That Millet Built with new construction photos of the completed drainage trench for the kitchen. Check it out!
Hullo. I am Brian, but I am also called Ziggy. I'm a 25-year-old currently living at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. In April of 2008, I began building my own cob house. Here I shall document the entire cob building process. This is the Year of Mud.
The House That Millet Built sustainablog