My friend Nathan who lives at Dancing Rabbit is interested in hosting natural building professionals who want to experience life in an off-the-grid community. If this description fits you, please read ahead!
Posts under ‘Resources’
You Can Build This Cob House For $3000
When designing my cob house, it was a goal to keep building costs very low and to obtain as many building materials as locally as possible, especially natural (of course) and reclaimed supplies. Few materials were purchased new, and about as few are synthetic.
In this very detailed entry, Recipe for Building a Cob House, you [...]
Help Promote Cob Building and Support The Year of Mud
A little over one year ago, I started building my first cob house. And simultaneously, I started The Year of Mud to document the entire building process. I have kept regular documentation going since I started designing my house, all the way through making an urbanite foundation, to building cob walls, constructing a reciprocal roof [...]
The most beautiful cob house ever?
There are a few natural buildings that stand out in my mind as some of the most beautiful examples. One of them is Meka’s cob cottage. See it for yourself here: The Most Beautiful Green Home Building Construction Project Ever?
What do you think?
Cob house and natural building resources
At the top of this page, you may have noticed a Cob Resources link. I update this page regularly with new articles, so it’s worth checking out if you’re interested in reading more about cob and other natural building techniques elsewhere on the web, or if you’d like to check out some of the natural [...]
How to find reclaimed lumber and recycled building materials
Even though load-bearing cob houses may not feature a lot of lumber in their construction, you will still need some wood and other materials for your building project. Windows, doors, bricks, and lumber can often be acquired for free from old homes if you are willing to carefully deconstruct them.
Check out this post I wrote [...]
Rocket stove heater construction @ I Love Cob!
Check out Michael Blaha’s rocket stove mass heater construction story at I Love Cob!. His stove features a fire brick heat riser, a 27 foot long flue pipe, and lots of thermal mass. Check it out. Lots of nice details here.
How to build a reciprocal roof frame
This is a long-delayed post about building my reciprocal roof frame. This entry documents the details of building my reciprocal roof frame, including the type of wood I used, the number of rafters, and the work process itself. I hope that this will be useful for individuals who want to attempt building a similar frame. [...]
My cob building in The Bund magazine of Shanghai
I was surprised to receive a comment on my blog from a foreign reader a couple of months ago. It was from The Bund magazine of Shanghai, and they were interested in doing an interview about building my cob house. Needless to say, I was immediately interested. Surprised, too, of course.
Anyway, I just got a [...]
How to build an earthen floor
Recently, I wrote an article about building earthen floors for Green Building Elements. Earthen floors are commonplace in straw bale and cob buildings, but they can also be installed in more typical suburban homes.
Check out the full article here: Natural Building 101: How to build an earthen or adobe floor.
