The Year of Mud: Building a cob house Rotating Header Image

Posts under ‘Drainage Trench’

What’s in store for 2010

Winter is the time for planning for the year ahead, and there’s a number of building-related projects in the works for 2010.

Cob work site pictures

As I just mentioned, the digging and filling of the rubble trench is now completed.
Here’s a shot of the completed trench, pre-gravel. This photo was taken facing north. Take note of the drainage trench in the northwest corner. All of the topsoil is piled along the fence line on the east side.

Instead of simply [...]

Trench digging completed

The past few days, I have been working long hours to dig the foundation trench for my eventual cob house. Today, it is complete, and ready to be filled with gravel. I am pretty psyched about that. The digging took four days with the help of Jeff, who will be work exchanging with me for [...]

Staking a site and digging a trench

Over the weekend, I staked out my building site. I started by staking out the very center of the house, and then I positioned additional stakes to form the east-west and north-south axes. The house is oriented to take maximum advantage of solar gain. Using string, I was able to determine the slope of the [...]