Friday, May 20, 2011

Cob Equity

by Chuck Hall
As we head into a new year, and people begin their annual resolutions, some may be thinking about a new home in the coming year. Many parts of the world are experiencing an economic slump in the housing market. Homeowners are feeling the current mortgage crunch in many ways, and first-time homebuyers may be rethinking traditional financing for a new home, given the current difficulties in obtaining a home loan.
For first-time homeowners who want to go green in a big way, there is an alternative to shackling yourself to a thirty-year mortgage. That alternative is to build a home using natural materials. For example, a home made of cob can be built using materials readily available on most building sites. Cob is simply a mixture of clay, sand and straw, similar to adobe, but stacked free-form without shaping it into bricks first. Once the cob walls are built, they are covered with a plaster to make them water-resistant and weatherproof.
A family of four can built a small cob home of around 800 to 1000 square feet in a little over a year, working on the weekends. Cob is a labor-intensive form of building, but the work is a fun activity for a family. There’s something about playing in the mud that touches the child in all of us! Granted, taking a year or so to build a home might be a long time for those of us accustomed to seeing a stick-built home go up in two or three months, but the advantage of cob is that since most of the materials can be obtained from the building site itself, a cob home is literally ‘dirt cheap.’ In fact, if you own a suitable building site, it is entirely feasible to pay as you go, so that when your home is finished, it is already paid for. Isn’t it worth a year or so of your weekends to have a home built by your family, that is paid for once it’s completed? Compare that to slaving away to pay off a mortgage for the next thirty years!
Another advantage to cob is that since the building materials are about the same consistency as modeling clay, you can incorporate artistic touches yourself, if you have any sculpting talent. Rather than the square, box-like look common to most stick-built homes, cob allows you to curve the walls and to add interesting shapes to the final design. The result is a beautiful structure that must be seen to be fully appreciated.
If you lack the skills to build with cob, there are workshops throughout the world that offer classes. A partial directory of cob instructors and workshops can be found at: http://www.cultureartist.org/CobDirectory.htm. If you don’t see a cob workshop near you, a simple Internet search will help you to locate one. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t find a nearby workshop. Cob builders are gypsies. They love to travel, so it may be possible for a teacher to come to your location for a workshop.
What if you don’t want to build it yourself, but would still like a cob home? Ask around. Many cob instructors hold workshops at various locations. Some would probably be willing to hold a workshop on your building site. They get the fees for any students they bring with them, and you get a home made of natural materials in exchange. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination! If you would like more information on building a home of cob or other natural materials, email me for more information at: info@cultureartist.org.
Good luck and happy cobbing!

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