Why we should all know how to build with cob?
6 things that will blow your mind about Cob
Cob
/käb/
(n.) A natural building material made typically from onsite subsoil, water, fibrous and organic material (typically straw), and sometimes lime. The contents of subsoil naturally vary, and if mixture does not contain the right ratios it can be modified with sand or clay.
The oldest cob house still standing is 10,000 years old in Saudi Arabia. Cob is strong, durable and cob houses should stand forever as long as their roof is maintained and the property is looked after properly. You can find cob homes, buildings and structures built in every country around the world. The UK have some dating back to the 1400s. Africa has cob homes that uses cow dung and add beautiful pottery-like paintings into the design work.
Cob is the most sustainable type of building there is. The materials for your cob walls are usually excavated from your foundation trench and on-site. This means there is no manufacture or transportation of materials. Many so called ‘eco homes’ claim to be green because they are cheap to run once built but the materials used to create them, usually have a massive carbon footprint. In contrast cob is genuinely as ‘eco’ as you can get as it has almost zero embodied energy. Since cob is made of the earth and water it is also entirely recyclable and non-polluting.
Can be an Affordable house to build yourself if you have land to build on and your soil test comes back with good clay to sand ratio. Being able to build cob walls with onsite subsoil allows for about a tenth of the cost of what a conventional home costs to build.
Breathable and healthy to live in – earthen walls act as a natural air purifier.
Cob Houses Designed and placed correctly depending on each sites location create thermal and passive solar energy gain. Which means cob houses requires little to no heat or cooling systems when designed with passive solar energy systems in mind.
You can make an oven out of Cob. Go check out our blog post about how to build one in your own backyard, or buy this book on amazon. You can even hire us out and we will help you build one. Send us an email if you live in Colorado and want to collaborate with a hands on cob-oven workshop.
Sources:
https://www.foxnews.com/science/10000-year-old-house-uncovered-outside-of-jerusalem
