Cob houses are so freakin wild!

[gorbal]

Check out the awesome variety of buildings you can make with cob (clay sand and straw)

http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/7148/cobpics.html

http://www.cpros.com/~sequoia/pictures.html

http://www.cobcottage.com/pics/

Cob an ancient building method that is having a resurgence because of it's minimal enviromental impact. I learned to build with it over the summer in Oregon. I got to scupt a face in the side of a cob house here-

http://photobucket.com/albums/v383/cobalow/August%202004/

:)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Papercrete

is neat as well. It is made with sand, cement, and paper. Great way of recycling, and you can use magazines, which are often hard to recycle.

BTW, the local alternative school was cob construction. Very ecological, with solar power, etc. etc.

[gorbal]

4. Oh yeah!

I've been reading about that. It has a higher embodied energy than cob, but it has other qualities that make up for it. It has a much better R-value, for example:)

[BlueHandDuo]

2. What's the difference between cob...

...and adobe?

[gorbal]

3. It's wet

Adobe is made into bricks and dried, cob is applied wet and alwasy includes straw.

I just found this link googling-

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/natural_building.htm

I think that is some of the best info there is on-line about alternative building.

:)

[BlueHandDuo]

5. Aha! Pretty interesting, but...

...I'm really interested in earth-sheltered houses that are built into a hillside -- that is, partially "buried" -- hmm, maybe I should read through all these categories before I say more.

[gorbal]

6. It's there,

Look under "earthship", or "PSP" two different underground styles.

Or you could build a "hobbit house" http://www.pinemanor.com/hobbit/index.html

:)

[gorbal]

7. Hokay

Who made the cob horse joke? :spank: