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Here it is…. the first food from the sod roof of my cob house. Mm mm.
Posts under ‘Living Sod Roof’
Strawberries on a living sod roof
Building a living sod roof for a cob house
At long last, I have a living roof! I’ve been anticipating this day for over a year now and it’s finally done. On Monday, a group of about twelve folks assembled to help me lift sod onto the top of my roof, and in two and a half hours, it was effectively covered.
Starting to build the living roof
Lately I have been focusing a lot of my attention on building the living roof (a.k.a. green roof, sod roof, or turf roof). Last week, I finished building an edge board – a sort of retaining wall around the perimeter of the roof to help hold the soil from sliding off the roof. I debated [...]
Getting in the last building work before winter
I will be headed out of Dancing Rabbit in three short weeks to go back to New Jersey for the holidays. Within the past couple of weeks, I have accepted the fact that I will not absolutely “finish” the house before that time. By “finish”, I mean complete the roof, finish the floor, make my [...]
Cob walls complete, windows and door installed, and more!
The past week or so has been quite eventful. There’s been mostly positive progress, but some negative, too.
Cobbing complete!
With Karen’s and my dad’s help, I completed cobbing. The walls are finally done! In just a few days, the gap between the walls and the roof was closed. It was very satisfying to see the final [...]
Dressing up the reciprocal roof
Before the EPDM went on the roof, I wanted to add a cushion of cardboard on top of the rafters and decking to protect the membrane. And before the cardboard went on, I wanted to add some kind of fabric so that the cardboard would not be visible from inside of the space. I bought [...]
EPDM pond liner for living roof construction
Last week, I ordered the most expensive material for my entire cob house: the EPDM pond liner for my (soon-coming) living roof. EPDM is a synthetic, petroleum-based rubber product commonly used for living roofs, due to its strength and durability. Apparently, it can last 50 years exposed to the sun, and presumably longer buried under [...]
Preparing for building the reciprocal roof frame
The past few days, I have been dwelling quite heavily on the roof design for my cob house. I will be constructing what is called a reciprocal roof, a self-supporting structure composed of pin oak and black locust poles. Reciprocal roofs are round and spiral-y, perfect for round structures. They require no center post and [...]
Peeling bark
The past couple of days, I began peeling bark off of the logs for the rafters of my living roof. I’m using a borrowed drawknife, a long, curved, two-handled blade for peeling back the bark. It’s sorta like whittling, only on a bigger scale. The idea is to peel back both the bark and cambium, [...]
Lumberjacking
The days have been packed recently. A few days ago, I began cutting down pin oak trees for the living roof of my cob house. On Tuesday morning, Dan lent me a hand and we took down three trees in an hour and a half, despite the ground being quite muddy.
This morning, I went out [...]
