GDL08: Building with cob
Cob is a very eco-friendly and cheap building material, as I found out on Wednesday when I spoke to cob building expert, Kate Edwards. As with straw bales, I was surprised to find out that cob buildings are very long lasting and can be more than one storey tall - indeed, there is an example of a ten storey building that is over a thousands years old!
One of the nice things about cob is that for most people, they can source the material locally, from their own foundations. I chatted to Kate about that, and about the process of building cob buildings:
And then Kate gave me a demonstration, showing me how to insert windows into a cob building, and discussing the merits of the cob pizza oven:
I took a lot of photos, which I’ll post up here later, but in the meantime, here’s my Grand Designs Live photo set.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Hey! Thanks for the great info about Cob buildings. I had never heard of that type of building material, but I always support a cheap eco friendly subsitute!
I was browsing through a bunch of green websites and blogs and I came across yours and found it very interesting. There are a bunch of others I like too, like the daily green, ecorazzi and earthlab.com. I especially like EarthLab.com’s carbon calculator (http://www.earthlab.com/signupprofile/). I find it really easy to use (it doesn’t make me feel guilty after I take it).
Are there any others you would recommend? Can you drop me a link to your favorites (let me know if they are the same as mine).